


Friction Match

by vegarin



Series: Friction Match [1]
Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Ensemble Cast, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-05
Updated: 2011-10-05
Packaged: 2017-10-24 08:07:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/261019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vegarin/pseuds/vegarin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>"It's the end of the world. You can be anyone you choose to be."</em>  Daryl Dixon, at the end of the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Friction Match

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Language, some violence. Implied character death and mentions of rape. Please expect nastiness, imposed by zombies _and_ humans.
> 
> Spoilers: The story takes place immediately after Season One. There may be a few vague references to the comics, but my knowledge of _The Walking Dead_ comics only extends to the Wikipedia summary page, so I honestly can't say how much this fic resembles the original source material.
> 
> Note: Massive thanks to my impeccable beta, readishmael, who deserves all the credit for making the story at all readable. Remaining mistakes and oversights are all mine.

**i.**

 

When Daryl held a hunting rifle and killed for the first time, he was seven.

A turkey shoot, Merle told him gleefully.  They looked more like rabbits to Daryl, but if Merle said they were turkeys, then they were turkeys.  Besides, the fuzzy little grey things, all gutted and bloody, looked nothing like the bunnies Daryl had seen on Sunday morning cartoons.

Still, Daryl didn't watch the cartoons again, after.

*

It takes almost half an hour, but Daryl manages to scavenge an almost-full bottle of whiskey from one of the employee lockers in the barricaded factory they're hiding out in for the night.  Sure, they didn't get blown to pieces along with the entire CDC site and a deranged scientist hell-bent on dying, but they are still truly, utterly _fucked_ , so his grand plan for the night mostly involves finding a quiet spot and getting shit-faced drunk.

It seems as good a plan as any, until he almost trips over Glenn.  The kid is crumpled at one corner of a storage room, and his hands are white-knuckled, clutching hard at his shirtsleeve.

This pathetic display rankles Daryl something fierce, so he sets out to give Glenn a piece of his mind.  Except, once he moves closer, he can see what the kid's staring at.  Back when they were camping out in the forests, Glenn tore a hole in his shirt while trying to dodge a Walker and a tree branch at the same time. The kid argued for throwing out the ruined shirt and grabbing a new one on his supply run to the city. Why not, he said, since there are thousands of them just lying around in empty department stores?  Only he got thoroughly scolded by Jacqui, who darned and patched it for him the next day.

The kid sees Daryl and turns his face away, but not quickly enough to hide the tears in his eyes.

Something inside Daryl twists and churns.  He can taste it, rotten and sour, in the back of his throat.

"She's dead 'cause she wanted to be dead. Feelin' sorry for yourself and sobbing like some girl ain't gonna bring her back."

Glenn's fingers freeze over his sleeve. For a long moment, the kid is quiet and still, but he gets up in another second and walks up to Daryl. There are still tears in his eyes.

"Fuck you," he says flatly, right to Daryl's face, and walks away.

_Well, shit,_ thinks Daryl, before swallowing another mouthful of whiskey.

*

Shane argues again for heading toward the army base. Dale wants to find another research center that might have answers, for all the good that will do.  Everyone's skittish over making real decisions.

"What we need," Rick tells the group, "is a long-term plan. We need to gather intelligence and decide where we should be headed and how we should get there.  This time, we plan things carefully."

_For fuck's sake_ , thinks Daryl.  "Oh, hell with that long-term plannin' bullshit."

Rick turns to him, all calm and composed, but Daryl knows a bare-threaded effort to keep his shit together when he sees one.  "I suppose you've got a better idea, then?"

"I sure don't, but all this thinkin's a surefire way to get ourselves killed.  We need to get the hell out, right now."

"And what good would _that_ do without knowing—"

"Daryl's right."

Everyone turns to Glenn, who hasn't made a single sound until now.  Glenn, who's been quietly avoiding Daryl.  With all eyes on him, the kid now seems to want nothing more than to sink into the background again.

"Speak your mind, Glenn," Rick encourages gently. "We're listenin'."

Glenn hesitates for another second before focusing on Rick. "We need a long-term plan, yeah, but we can't stop to think, not here.  The Walkers are gonna be closing in on the CDC site anytime now, and we're in the way, whichever direction they're coming from.  We should be leaving, _now_ , and thinking and planning can come after."

Rick listens and thinks it through—they all do.  When Rick looks around, T-Dog and Shane nod at him. The rest follow, nodding and murmuring in agreement.

"All right," Rick agrees, easily enough. "We leave." 

And Daryl doesn't get Rick Grimes, sometimes.  Grimes isn't even one bit begrudging, like he doesn't actually mind being told he's wrong.  Had it been Merle—

Daryl stops there.  But what?  Had it been Merle, things would surely be different, but Merle isn't here, is he?  Daryl takes a breath and lets it out before the thought— _and whose damned fault is it that he ain't?_ —starts to fester. 

And he says, "What the hell we waitin' for, then?" 

Glenn still doesn't meet Daryl's eyes, which is fine by Daryl.

They move on.

*

"What the fuck," Daryl seethes, "is your problem?"

Andrea, after dropping a bag full of ammo, looks up at him blankly.

After that little stint at the CDC, it's like everyone has all of a sudden wised up to the fact that the world's really fucking ended.  Rick Grimes is walking around with another weight on his shoulders, and Shane has an even bigger scowl etched on his face.  The kids are going around sniffling all the time, and Andrea—well, that woman's being almost as crazy-ass creepy as she was right after her sister bought it, and that's saying something. 

Daryl snatches the bag away from her grip and gets in her face. "Listen, if you wanna be all suicidal or whatever the hell you're doin' now, do it on your own dime.  Don't go draggin' us down with you, you hear me?"

He completely ignores Dale, who hasn't been anything more than a dead weight lately, and leaves them to join the rest of the group and check the damage to their ammo supply.

"Go gentle on Andrea," Rick tells him later, when the two of them are alone. "None of this is easy, and she just lost her sister."

"Right," Daryl sneers. "Because the rest of us haven't lost nobody."

"We all have— _you_ have." Rick looks at him with quiet eyes. "So you should know how she feels."

More than once Daryl has given some serious thought to hightailing it and searching for Merle by himself. But being a part of a group, ragtag as it is, gives him a better chance at staying alive.  Daryl figures this is as good an offer as he's ever gonna get, and without Merle around, he's got to make do with what he's got left.

Still, even with all that in mind, at this point it should've taken at least a minor miracle for Daryl to walk away without punching Rick Grimes in the face.

Instead, all it takes is Glenn, lingering behind them and uneasily worrying his bottom lip.

It sets Daryl's teeth on edge.

*

In their search for the elusive army base, they come across a K-Mart.

This presents a problem.

On the one hand, a chance for some good, old-fashioned looting is too good to miss. On the other hand, they have no idea what's waiting for them inside, so it has a good chance of whittling their ever-dwindling numbers down to zero.

When they gather on the hill looking down at the town they're about to pass by, Shane shakes his head.  "It's way too exposed for us to go down there.  Look, it's not that I don't know we're short on food, but—"

"There's nothing left for us to be even short _on_ ," Lori cuts in sharply. "The kids are starving, and we might never come across another opportunity like this.  We have to risk it."

"How long can we last with what we have?" Rick asks.

T-Dog rifles through their meager supply list.  "A day, man. Two, maybe. And even that's one hell of a maybe."

Daryl can read the same thought on everyone's face: _We're never going to make it_.

"If we plan it carefully, we might get inside and come out all right."  Dale, as always, is the voice of the one scrap of optimism they've got left between all of them.

Shane's still not convinced.  "What plan do we have other than barreling in and getting ourselves killed?"

"Look," Rick says, stepping in before the discussion grows into a screaming argument, "we've got no choice.  We have no food, we have no gas, and we _have_ _to_ go in.  The only real question is how."

Everyone stares at the gridlocked town streets below them.  No options are forthcoming.  Daryl can't think of any plan that won't get himself killed, either, except—

"What does the kid think?" Daryl asks, before his brain catches up with his mouth.

Rick looks at him, as if it's a complete surprise that Daryl cares for anyone's opinion that isn't his own, and then turns to the kid.  "Glenn?"

The kid looks taken aback, and then nearing panic. "Uh, I don't know.  I haven't actually, I mean—"

"Not tryin' to put you on the spot here, Glenn," Rick says gently, "but Daryl's right, we should've asked you first. God knows, if anyone can get us in and out alive, you can."

The kid looks like he can't quite decide whether to be proud or terrified.  Still, it only takes him a few seconds to gather his thoughts.  "It might work if we go in though the northwest corridor over there. It's probably the easiest to slip through.  See that gate? We can block that pathway before going in—"

They listen while Glenn lays down their options, some of which are halfway decent and maybe even doable.  All the while, Rick looks at Daryl sideways, like he doesn't quite know how to puzzle him out.

That suits Daryl just fine.

*

The fuckers just keep on coming.

Daryl can't even bring himself to be pissed about it, mostly because he doesn't have a second to spare. He cuts across heaps of garbage and runs between columns of crate piles, half-frenzied and trying to recall the way out of this maze.  It wasn't in their plan for him to be separated from the group this far back, blocks away from where they're all supposed to meet up.

Then again, nothing ever goes down according to their plan, so it's not as if he didn't see this coming.

When a hand grabs his shoulder, Daryl whirls around and swings his machete, with every intention of cutting off the head that belongs to the hand's owner. His machete stops just a few inches before it does what it set out to do, because Glenn's standing behind him, blinking owlishly.

"God _dammit_ ," Daryl snarls, "I damned near took your head off!  The hell you think you're doin'?"

Glenn unfreezes quickly and places his hand on Daryl's arm again, which goes to show just how shitty the kid's survival instinct really is. "Up there," he says, tugging at Daryl's sleeve and pointing at the ladder on the side of the next building. "C'mon."

Even without turning, Daryl can hear—and smell, fuck, the _smell_ —the sluggish, rotting bodies moving behind them.  "Shit. Go, go, _go_."

Daryl lets Glenn lead him up the ladder until they reach the roof.   The buildings are closely set enough that they can easily jump across the gaps, which is why they—Glenn—chose it as one of their possible escape routes.

They're at least seven blocks away when they finally stop.  Daryl wipes the sweat trickling down his temple. "The hell did you come after me for?"

Glenn has his hands braced on his knees, his breath obviously caught in his chest. "What do you mean?  It's what we do."

"No, it really ain't."

"Hey, you guys came back for me when that gang took me in Atlanta."

Glenn sounds so reasonable and sure that Daryl is tempted to rub it in the kid's face that Daryl was all for leaving him to the whims of the nursemaid homies from hell.  Then again, Daryl isn't about to persuade Glenn not to risk his neck to save him in the future, so he just shrugs it off.  "Whatever, kid."

"You know, I actually have a name."

"Do you, now."

The kid rolls his eyes. "Yeah, I do.  And hey, no need to thank me for saving your life or anything."

Daryl has to stop in the middle of adjusting the straps on his sawn-off shotgun.  "You muddled in the head?  That what this is?  Or you actually dumb enough to think we're some sorta buddies?" 

Glenn stares at him, mouth agape.  "Wow."

Daryl's beginning to realize that irritation will be the default mode for him wherever this kid's concerned.  " _What_?"

"Nothing.  I mean, I already figured you'd be an even bigger buzzkill than Shane, but I didn't think anyone could be this much of an ass, either."

Daryl almost snorts before he recalls that he's supposed to find this entire exchange irksome.  So he elbows Glenn in the chest until the kid stumbles on his feet.  "Shut up and get a move on, kid."

Glenn looks up at him pointedly, and Daryl rolls his eyes.

"Move, _Glenn_."

They start running again.

*

From the safety of their barricaded shelter, they watch a group of Walkers ripping apart a bunch of buzzards with their hands and teeth.

It's halfway between terrifying and hysterical, the way they go at each other's throats, literally, over a cut of some dead birds.  It's also the closest thing they've got left to a spectator sport, so the children and Glenn are gaping at the scene.  The grown-ups are also observing the scene more leisurely than usually possible, mostly because they aren't perilously close to sharing the fate of said birds.

Daryl, in the middle of fixing the lever of his crossbow, stops to watch for a minute.  He notes to himself to try it out in the future—throw down some food and get these fuckers to kill each other over it.  That should clear an entire field real quick.

"Reminds me of the mall on Black Friday," Shane remarks offhandedly.

"Well," says Rick, after a beat, "I suppose there're similarities.  Viciousness, for one."

"Nah, this ain't nothin'."  T-Dog sounds confident.  "Ever try goin' after the last half-price iPod at Radio Shack?"

There's a collective wince. 

"Right," says Shane, once he's apparently recovered from that mental image. "Clearly, Walkers aren't bloodthirsty enough." 

Carol looks almost amused. "You men are terrible."

"It's true, though." Rick waves his arm in the general direction of the shambling corpses. "Black Fridays _are_ worse than this."

"Were," says Andrea.  Her voice is slow and indistinct, like it's on autopilot.  "Not are.  We won't ever have another Black Friday."

_Buzzkill_ , Daryl hears himself think, rather distinctly.

"Shit."  Rick runs a hand down his face. "Yeah, you're right. Were."

The rest of them begin to talk about things they lost, things they miss, things they will never have again.  Daryl goes back to replacing a loose wire on the crossbow, because when he remembers the things he's lost, he can only bring to mind things like sweating in the withering, yellowing field under the heat of the July sun, the putrid smell of furs and dried blood from their collapsed backyard shed, and Merle's muttering— _you better kill or else you get killed_ —after he's come home, buzzed and drunk from another hunt. 

When he looks up again, the Walkers are still gorging on tiny, bloody bits of buzzards.

All the things that his life used to consist of, they're still right here.  It's still a struggle, and it's still pretty shitty.

"It don't change all that much."

He doesn't realize he's spoken out loud until Dale, standing behind him, agrees with him, "No, it sure doesn't." 

When Daryl turns to Dale, he sees a hint of something that might be a grin on Dale's face.  "Still," Dale adds, "the world as we know it has ended. Maybe now we can try to be the people we've always wanted to be."

It's not that Daryl is buying all the bullshit Dale is selling wholesale, but Daryl lets his eyes follow Dale's until they're both watching Andrea, sitting apart from the rest.  She's just ghosting along, like she's not all in there anymore. 

And now, even that little hint of a grin on Dale's face fades.  "Well," Dale says ruefully, "we live in hope, don't we?"

When Dale walks away, his footsteps seem heavier from the weight of his own words.

_Nothing_ , thinks Daryl. _Nothing's changed_. 

They are still truly, utterly fucked. 

*

They reach the army base. 

It's deserted.

Outside, there's not a single soul or a rotten corpse—undead or not—in sight. They do some poking around—mostly by following the scent of death, which they've all become intimately familiar with—until they find a large pit inside the fenced-in courtyard.  They stop and stare at the remains of crumbling bodies, piled up high and scorched black.

A crow flies by low and caws at them.  

Rick crouches down and grabs a handful of ashes.  Daryl watches as Rick lets it scatter in the wind.

The inside is also empty; some people have already gone through everything and taken anything that could've been useful.  Still, Lori and Carol scrape together a few leftover boxes of military MREs and Dale picks up replacement tools.  Daryl salvages a couple of M-4s, except there's too little ammo for them to be of much use.

They come across a large office that could've been used as the main operations center.  Rick examines the long-range communication radios and tests them out.  "No signal," he says grimly, but it's not like it's even a surprise.  They've been getting nothing but static on the radio for weeks.

"No," T-Dog snorts, "'cause that would've been too fucking easy."

"Hey," says Shane. He lifts his rifle to point at the door to the office.

A piece of paper is stuck on the middle of the door.  It reads, in scribbled handwriting: _Some of us are going to try Robins Air Force Base._ A list of names, thirteen in total, is attached to the note. 

The list doesn't include Merle's name.  That isn't a surprise, either.

There is also a map attached to the note, with a red circle identifying where the base is located.

Everyone stares at the map.

Shane is the first to break the silence.  "What now?" he asks, like just saying the two words takes everything out of him. "Do we take a chance and follow?"

Fatigue leaks out into everyone's face at the very idea, but in the end, they've got no other choice.  They put it to a vote.  They all say go. 

"Guess we'll take that chance," says Rick.

Before they leave, they add their names to the list.

*

It's Daryl's watch, but for some stupefying reason, Glenn is also up and awake with him. The kid bumbles around with a little stove, trying to boil up water and rambling on about making coffee to help them stay alert.

Daryl has mostly tuned him out, except to let the cadence of the kid's voice keep him company while he scrubs off the rust crusted on his arrows—zombie blood is hell on iron, and he's got no spares—until Glenn interrupts his rhythm with, "Where do the souls go, you think?"

The kid seems to mistake Daryl's glare for an actual sign of interest, because he proceeds to explain, "My parents used to believe in the afterlife. And with the Walkers—I mean, don't you wonder sometimes?"

Daryl squints his eyes at him. "Is this some Chinese bullshit again?"

"They were Christians. And for the tenth time, I'm _Korean_."

"Oh, for—you think I give a shit about that difference?"

"Now that I know you, yeah," Glenn answers easily.  Daryl has half a mind to disabuse the kid of that notion real quick, except now there's something else in the kid's face, hesitant and uncertain. "Dale says it helps to believe there might be something better waiting for us after all this, now more than ever. I'm not sure I do. Believe, I mean."

Daryl remembers a small golden cross his mother used to wear around her neck.  Every Sunday morning, she used to scrub his face clean with a piece of cloth that felt like sandpaper and stuff him into his Sunday best, then go on about telling him and Merle about the Baby Jesus and the angels singing and the glory of Heaven and all of that that comes after the end of the world.  Merle never believed a word.  Daryl's never been convinced either way, but then again he figures this particular version of the end of the world they've got going now probably isn't what she was talking about back then.

Daryl isn't sure what the kid is getting at with all this talk about souls and whatnot, but he stops what he's doing and waits for Glenn to spill whatever's eating at him.

After another moment of hesitation, Glenn sits down next to Daryl and opens up his palm.  In his hand is a white plastic bottle. 

"Sleeping pills," Glenn explains when Daryl picks up the bottle.  "Found them at the bottom of Andrea's bag.  I was looking for some bandages, and they were just...there."

Daryl thinks back to the last time they were on a supply run.  When they hit a Wal-Mart at the last town, Andrea was in charge of stocking supplies from its pharmacy.  Daryl figures that's when she must've grabbed them.  He puts the bottle back in Glenn's hand.  "Let her have at them."  This way, at least, she won't waste another precious bullet.

"I don't know," Glenn says helplessly. "Shouldn't we do—something?"

"Like what?" Daryl snaps. "Don't you think she's gonna find a way anyhow if she's that set on dyin'?" 

Glenn's shoulders sink.  "But she can't.  What about Dale?  What about the rest of us?  Doesn't she care what it would do to—"

"Glenn."

At the hard tone in Daryl's voice, the kid stops and looks up.

"You know that ain't how it works."

Glenn stares at him for a long moment. "Yeah," he says, rubbing his eyes, "yeah, I do."  After a pause, the kid turns to him again.  "You know, it's kinda scary how you actually make sense sometimes."

Glenn cracks a grin at Daryl, like there is a joke lost in there somewhere, but it's not a happy kind of smile. 

That bothers Daryl in ways he doesn't get, but he doesn't care to find out why. "Get up."

"What?" Glenn blinks. "Why?"

Daryl drops his crossbow in Glenn's lap.  Glenn stares at it and then stares up at Daryl. 

"You said you wanted to learn.  Now's your chance."

Glenn blinks at him again.  Then he grins, this time for real, and bumps his knee against Daryl's.

Daryl doesn't smile back, but he feels it anyway, a half-formed grin trying to surface against all his better judgment.

*

Andrea cuts herself and requires several stitches.  Everyone nods understandingly when Dale says she stepped on a shard of broken glass; no one necessarily believes it.  Between Carol and Lori, they have a few hours' worth of first aid training, so they manage to put her back together, but now everyone is waiting with bated breath for the other shoe to drop.

She's sitting on a log and staring unblinkingly at the indigo sky that's already smudged in amber.  You don't stay out after the sunset these days unless you've got some urgent desire to get killed. 

She doesn't move.

By some unspoken agreement, everyone gives her a wide berth—even Dale, who seems to have aged about a decade overnight.  Daryl reloads his rifle and watches the horizon.  He's still intact and whole, nothing broken and no hole where it shouldn't be, but at times he feels like he's already been bled dry.  His trigger finger itches.  
   
_To hell with it_ , he thinks.  He's not gonna tiptoe around that woman and her damned feelings and put himself in danger along with the rest of the lot.  He's going to drag her sorryass inside—kicking and screaming, if he has to.  

He steps out of the shade but pauses in mid-stride because Glenn—of course—is gingerly making his way toward Andrea.

"Hey, Andrea," says Glenn, shuffling his feet.

When she doesn't answer, he sits down at her side.  In the twilight, she looks distant and faint, like she can pull a disappearing act on them any time she decides. 

"I, um, are you okay?"

It's a dumb question.  At least it looks like the kid knows it, too, because he winces the second it leaves his mouth.  Still, it doesn't seem like Andrea notices.  She doesn't look like she notices anything, in fact.  But the kid waits.

And waits, and waits some more, until she says, "I'm not sure this is living anymore, Glenn."  

The kid looks stricken, but eventually gathers himself enough to press on: "Once we find that Air Force base—"

"It'll just be more of the same." 

"But we won't know until we get there, right?"

There's no answer, and the kid's face falls again.  He stares at his hands.

"Do you ever—you ever think you should've stayed behind?  At the CDC?" Glenn asks, painstakingly hesitant, like he's harbored the question for a long time and dragging it out will only hurt him.  He stares at his hands some more.  "I was so happy when I saw you and Dale get out of that building.  But maybe it was selfish, to think it could give me hope when you're not, when you don't—when you can't even stand to be with us anymore."

Andrea finally turns to him.  "It's not," she stops, and really looks at the kid, and Daryl thinks maybe it's the first time she's really seen anyone in a while.  "Oh, Glenn, it's not—it's not you.  Or Dale, or anyone.  It's just, when your hope dies, little by little, you start thinking you would've been better off if it'd never been there in the first place.  That's all."

"But it might not always be this way," Glenn says, doggedly sincere. "It could get better, things might even change.  I mean, you won't know, really, until you get there, right?  That's just it, isn't it?  You'll really never know what we'll find.  No one does." 

_So fucking soft_ , thinks Daryl.  There's no edge in Glenn, inside or out, and the kid truly means it when he tells Andrea that things can still turn out for the better.  Daryl wants to grab the kid by the shoulders and shake him, wants to ask him where he's been during the last few months while everyone's been slowly and surely losing their shit, because, really, _what the fuck_.

But even as Daryl fights the urge to shake Glenn until something snaps, he can see Andrea, who now seems more solid and _there_ , and how her eyes soften. "Glenn—"

"Things might still turn out to be all right," the kid insists mulishly.  "I mean, can you tell me you're absolutely sure things will always stay like this?  Can you tell me that?"

"No," she tells Glenn, almost kindly. "No, I can't." 

"Then, maybe, you can take a chance?  With us?"

The kid looks at Andrea, anxious and hopeful at the same time, and Daryl almost sympathizes with her.  He idly wonders how long she's going to be able to hold out.

Not too long, apparently, because she gets up slowly and offers Glenn her hand.  Glenn stares at it until he's convinced himself he is seeing what he thinks he's seeing, and finally takes the offered hand.  The kid's grinning so hard his face neatly splits in two.

At dinnertime, Andrea actually smiles once, if briefly, and Dale looks about two decades younger again.  When they're done feasting on canned ham and rock-hard biscuits, Rick decides to crack open his secret stash of wine that has somehow survived their trip across Georgia.  The Grimes kid makes a face at the taste of wine, again, and that little girl of Carol's, Sophia, giggles at him. 

After, there's even some half-drunk singing by Shane that Daryl ends up—all very unwittingly—joining in.

All of this makes Daryl forget, if only for a short while, that they're all just the turkeys in a turkey shoot.

*

"I didn't—I didn't _know_."  Shane, helpless against Rick's rage, stumbles on his feet and over his own words.  "I didn't know you were still alive.  I thought you were dead—I thought you were _dead_ , _Rick_!"

Because they obviously can't have something like a series of good days, a Grimes family crisis fucks things up just when Daryl makes the mistake of thinking they might make it, somehow, without anyone else getting eaten.

Normally, Daryl has a good enough sense of self-preservation to stay the hell away from any domestic bullshit, but he can see Lori, ghastly white, holding onto Andrea's hand and looking seconds away from passing out.  Carl Grimes is watching from inside the RV, even as Carol's trying to shield him and Sophia from the sight.  T-Dog and Dale are trying their damnedest to pry Rick off Shane—trying and failing.

And Glenn.  Maybe for the first time Daryl's seen him, the kid looks pale and hopelessly afraid.

That tips the scale.

Daryl pushes in between the two men and blocks Rick's fist, which is about to pummel Shane's face.

"Let go of my hand."  Rick is cold and level and deadly, and not for the first time, Daryl thinks Rick Grimes would've made a fine sheriff, one that Daryl would've known not to fuck with if he could help it.

Daryl doesn't let go. Instead, he meets Rick's eyes and holds his gaze until he sees something other than just rage there. "The world has fuckin' ended. You get that?  The world has fucking _ended_."  He turns to Shane. "Get your heads outta your asses."

Rick stills into silence, and there's one long second when everyone else is left holding their breath.

"Let me point out the irony of Daryl Dixon being the voice of reason here," says Dale, calmly.

An eternity later, Rick takes one step back.  He looks at his wife, and then at his best friend, and walks away from both.  A minute later, Lori follows after him.  Shane remains slumped on the ground.  The rest start to breathe again.

Glenn gives Daryl this now-familiar look, the one where he looks at him like he's just saved a newborn puppy from certain death.  It used to be irritating as hell, an itch he couldn't quite scratch.  Now, it pulls at him like a noose around his neck.

Now, it feels like the real danger is something other than those dead fuckers out there. 

*

They're maybe a few dozen miles away from the Air Force base when they pass by a lone woman digging a hole on the side of the highway.  It's been a while since they've come across anyone alive, so this isn't exactly unwelcome, except there's something not right about the whole thing. 

"She gone crazy in her head or somethin'?" Daryl asks, once they stop and a few of them make their way toward her.  It wouldn't be the first time this has happened, either.  More often than not, other survivors they come across tend to be on the crazier side, not that Daryl blames them.  But it always pays to be careful, so when Rick leads the way, Daryl and T-Dog have their shotguns ready.  Daryl even has his aimed.

The woman doesn't even look up at their approach.  Up close, Daryl can see the blood on her fingertips.  He tenses even more when he sees three corpses laid out at her side.

"Hey there."  Rick is slow and careful, like he's trying hard not to spook a wild horse. "You doin' all right there?"

Rick takes a few steps forward and suddenly stops in his tracks, his face gone oddly tight. 

He signals the rest of them to stand down and then looks over at Andrea, who nods and goes over to the woman.  "Here." Andrea wraps her arm around the shoulders of the frail woman, who doesn't react to her touch.  "Let's take a look at your hands, alright?"

After she and Carol cajole the woman into the RV, T-Dog walks over to Rick's side.  "What's up?"

Rick grimly nods at the bodies, and Daryl sees it, too: the bodies are all riddled with holes.  Bullet holes. 

"No way," T-Dog shakes his head, "no _way_ any Walker could've done this."

"No shit," says Daryl.  Someone—someone walking _and_ breathing—pumped these people full of lead.  Scatterguns, most likely.

After a moment of staring at the bodies, Rick disappears into the van and comes back with a shovel.  Daryl exchanges a look with T-Dog and does the same.

When they're done digging the three graves, Andrea comes out of the RV.  She looks whiter than a sheet, which tells Daryl this is about to go nowhere good. 

"One of them was her husband," she tells them. "They were traveling with an elderly couple when a few men came after them.  They killed everyone except her, raped her and took their car and food."  It's hard to tell whether her voice is shaking from anger or shock. "Those men—they were soldiers.  Or at least wearing the uniforms."

No one says anything for a while.

"We went to that base, Robins Air Force Base, looking for other survivors," the woman tells them later that night.  "There was no one there, but then after we left the base, we came across Frank and Hazel, and they told us about this place they heard about, Woodbury." 

_A marionette without the strings_ , thinks Daryl.  Nothing about the woman seems alive, though she talks and speaks like she is.  "It's supposed to be somewhere west of here," she says, in a clear, monotone voice. "Apparently it's a safe haven, for all of us.  Those things, not one of those things can get in there.  That's what Hazel heard anyway, but they thought they were too old to travel.  Nick convinced them, you see, told them that the four of us can make it out there if we help each other.  So Woodbury was where we were headed when—" 

The woman's face turns blank again.  The rest of them watch in stilted silence as Carol takes her inside the RV to make her get some rest.

The next morning, they find her body next to her husband's grave.

Rick falls to his knees.  A long moment later, he removes from her hand the gun she stole from Carol.  Then he picks up a shovel and starts digging.

Shane, who's been standing a few steps behind, follows him with another shovel.  They haven't said a word to each other since their blow-up, but they don't need words now, not for this.  No one does.

"Makes you wonder who the real monsters are," Dale says, resigned, as they mark another grave.

Once they're done burying her body, they turn west.

 

**ii.**

  
When the tanker explodes, its impact, the heat of it, hits Daryl like a small quake. 

"Fuck," Daryl grinds out once he realizes what's happened.  He can't drive through the debris, so he stumbles out of his pick-up truck and starts running.  He can't see shit through the smoke and the fire already spilling over the streets, but he remembers the roads from the makeshift map that Rick and Glenn drew in the sand.  One block.  Two.  Three blocks down, the southwest corner.  He finally fumbles onto the corner where the truck was supposed to be.

Glenn's tanker truck has been set ablaze, erupting white-hot smoke everywhere.

"Glenn!"

No answer.

_Fuck, where the hell is_ —

Then he sees it, just beyond the grey haze of smoke and the rubble of collapsed blockades, an outline of a man on the ground, prone and unmoving.  It's Glenn.

Daryl doesn't remember moving, but seconds later he's dragging Glenn's body off to the side.  His hands tremble when they search for the pulse in Glenn's neck.  The pulse is there, but the kid's eyes are still shut, and his chest doesn't move.

"Breathe," Daryl shakes Glenn by the shoulders, "breathe, you fuck!"

Glenn wakes up with a cough.

Daryl's knees fold underneath him, so he slumps on the ground and runs a hand through his hair.  "Shit."

"Aw, man," Glenn croaks out, after coughing his lungs out for what seems like an hour. "Never, ever again."

The moment Daryl's convinced that Glenn is actually in one piece, he grabs the kid by his collar and hisses, "What the hell was that?"

"Ow." Glenn tries to push himself off the ground, looking befuddled. "What was what now?"

"That out there, that shit you just pulled _. That_!"

"Oh," says Glenn, "the distraction?  The one we talked about?"

"The dis—" Daryl pauses to take a deep breath, but bitter smoke instantly fills up his lungs, so he grits his teeth instead. "You were supposed to _wait_."

"Right."  Glenn looks around, all shifty-eyed. "Uh, can you rag on me later?  We're gonna get swarmed by the Walkers pretty soon if we don't get out, like now."

Daryl is tempted to throttle the kid some more, but he realizes he's already lost his shit so thoroughly that he even left his shotgun and crossbow behind.  He pulls Glenn up on his feet and they make their way back.  By the time they return to Daryl's truck, the kid's cough has subsided a little.

Glenn slides into the passenger seat next to Daryl.  "Yeah, okay, so hear me out first, okay?"

Daryl maneuvers the truck through the broken roads, leaving the wreckage of the explosion behind them.  His teeth remain gritted.  "Talk."

"Shane radioed me and said the Walkers weren't following T-Dog's car like they were supposed to, so—"

"So _,_ you were supposed to _wait for me_ , you dumbass, before you went 'head with blowin' shit up!"

"I know, I know, but Walkers were closing in on him quick and we didn't have much time, and Shane said rigging the truck could be done by one person, so I just went and, uh, did it.  And hey, it worked, didn't it?"

Daryl swears out loud and promises himself that he'll have a word with Shane.  Several words.  "What part of 'you were s'posed to wait' don't you get, huh?  Get this through your thick head—Shane?  The bastard screwed his best friend's wife and now he thinks he's got nothin' left to lose.  That means he's got himself a death wish, and that means you don't wanna follow him into some dumb plan he comes up with!"

"Okay, alright, but my tank was pretty much empty, but Shane's got one that's almost full and we would've been screwed if he didn't make it out there—"

"Right, 'cause you not makin' out, that ain't no problem—"

"And you know all the gas stations we've come across for days were totally pumped dry.  We're running on fumes, and we can't even _begin_ to look for that Woodbury place if we don't have any ga—"

Daryl's punch rattles the wheel. " _You think I don't know any of that_?"

At that, Glenn falls silent.  The kid stares out the window for a little while before turning to Daryl again.  "Would you have waited?"

That stops Daryl.

"Would you have waited," Glenn asks again, "knowing full well that with just one wrong spark, both of us could be lying dead instead of just one of us?"

Daryl doesn't—can't—answer.

"It was a good plan, Daryl," Glenn says quietly. "But I didn't want to go through with it with you there."

Daryl doesn't trust himself not to wreck the wheel in his grip, so he says nothing and drives them back to the ramshakle farm just outside the town, where the rest of the group is barricaded inside.  It looks like the plan was a success, because a celebration is well underway.  Shane and T-Dog are already returned as conquering heroes, with enough gasoline to let them cross several states if they wanted.

The moment they get off the truck, Rick comes up to meet them, one eyebrow raised at Glenn. "I recall someone tellin' me once it's never a good idea to deviate from the plan."

Glenn looks flushed. "I should've added that sometimes you also need to think on your feet."

"Yeah, all right."  Rick pulls the baseball cap off Glenn's head and ruffles the kid's hair.  "Just don't make a habit of scarin' the shit out of us."

Rick is half-stern and all proud, and Glenn's face is nothing but a big wide grin.  There are more pats on Glenn's shoulder, Shane and T-Dog envelop him in bear hugs, and Andrea mothers him thoroughly, checking to see whether he's hurt anywhere.

Daryl watches from the side.

Once, he told Glenn that if he ever got turned into one of "them", Glenn had his permission to blow his brains out.  Glenn stared at him for a moment before nodding in all seriousness. "Okay, and you've got my permission to do the same.  To—for me, if that ever happens."

For a while after that, a jagged and graphic image of Glenn turning into one of them bothered Daryl in careless, unthinking moments.  And now, it's been replaced with the image of Glenn on that road, buried in crumbling, dusty grey, a charcoal sketch singed at all corners.

_Goddammit_.  Daryl digs his palms into his eyes.  He wants that image gone.  He wants to scratch it out of his brain, scoop it out with a dull spoon. 

But it's still there, burned and engraved on the back of his eyelids. 

*

The tool shed smells like decades-old mildew and damp hay.  Handsaws and scythes are hanging from the ceiling, and the walls are covered with sickles and hatchets, pliers and pruning shears.  Daryl watches them from the corner where he's sitting, absently looking for chinks in the gleaming tools where there shouldn't be any and wondering how much damage each of them could inflict on a Walker's molding and rotting neck.  

There's about an inch of whiskey left in the bottle in his hand.  A sip of it burns clean through his chest, so he swallows a few more gulps and lets them help him reach the state of temporary amnesia he's after.  He's not quite made it, but he's getting there.

Then he realizes the bottle is now empty.

He leans back against the wooden planks of the wall behind him and balances the empty bottle on his knee.  He tips it with his finger and then watches it topple.

A bale of hay is coming undone at his foot.  It makes him recall a blight on a field full with dying wheat and a fire clearing it away, and what it felt like, watching the flame rise—and watching Merle, as his brother stared at the entire season's work, burning in front of his eyes. 

He needs more whiskey, he decides.

He's trying to get his clumsy, slack feet to move when the door to the shed creaks open, bringing in light and a familiar face. 

"Hey, there you are.  Uh, you know I've been looking for you, like, all over?"

The voice rings violently in Daryl's head, like a dull razor has taken up residence and decided to muck around inside it.  With some effort, Daryl suppresses the pain and staggers to his feet.

The kid steps inside, because he's never had the good sense to leave things alone.  "Seriously, you even remember talking my ear off about never wandering off by myself?  How any Walker could just waltz right in and assume you're a walking Happy Mea—"

There's a sharp, stinging pain somewhere along the side of Daryl's foot and he barely catches himself from falling flat on his face.  Glenn's hand instantly comes up and wraps itself around Daryl's arm. 

Daryl violently pushes the hand away and hisses, "Don't."

"Daryl."

"I said _don't_."

When Daryl drags himself up again with his hand braced against the wall, he can still feel Glenn at his side.  When he turns around, they're standing close enough for Daryl to see that the kid's lips are pressed into a thin, stubborn line.  "You're drunk," the kid says patiently, "and you're bleeding.  Let me see."  

After all this time the kid's survival instinct still runs as deep as a puddle.

"C'mon, there's broken glass all over the floor.  Let me help, okay?"

Daryl's foot is hurting, and so is his head, but the second Glenn's hand is on his arm again, all Daryl can feel and taste is the bitter smoke filling his lungs once more.

_Fuck_ , Daryl thinks savagely, and grabs the kid's arm and twists it, slamming him face-first against the wall. 

The kid takes a sharp, pained breath. "Daryl, what—"

"I said _don't, you stupid fuck_."

Glenn is squirming and trying to kick him loose, but Daryl's got sheer brute strength on his side, so he easily keeps Glenn pressed against the wall, one hand pinning Glenn's arm behind him and the other hand tight around the kid's neck. 

Glenn swallows thickly and scrapes with his free hand against the chokehold.  "All right, okay, I'm sorry, let—shit—let go, Daryl, let go, all right?"

"What did I say?" Daryl's voice teeters, slurring around the edges, but his grip tightens around the kid's throat. " _The fuck did I say_?"

"Okay, Daryl, I get it, okay? You're mad, I'm sorry I made you mad."

Daryl almost chokes on his laughter, loud and unhinged.  "Since when do you give a shit about what makes me mad?"

Abruptly, the kid goes still.  "You're right," Glenn grits out, voice raspy, "I'm not sorry.  At all.  Is that what you wanted to hear?  That I would set that truck on fire again if I had to?  What _is_ it that you're so scared of?"

Rage flares, quick like a breath, and Daryl pounds Glenn into the wall, once, twice, until the kid winces and screws his eyes shut.  "Stop patronizin' me, you little shit.  I ain't gonna stand here and listen while you pry me apart like some cheap _trinket_."

"Daryl—" Glenn trails off, gasping for breath.  The kid's skin feels hot and clammy under Daryl's grip.  The pulse underneath his fingertips is still beating wildly.  Still alive.  Still familiar. 

And his grip falters. 

It's only for a second, but that's enough.  Glenn is quick on his feet and scrappy when called for, always has been, so he elbows Daryl in the stomach, hard, and twists away from Daryl's grip before punching him in the face.

Daryl sees stars, and for one absurd moment, he's insanely proud of the kid.

But the pain also comes through the haze of alcohol, and he sobers instantly.

_Fuck._

Awareness comes in cold increments, and there's one suspended second when they're staring at each other, Glenn still trying to catch his breath and Daryl struggling to his feet.  And the way the kid is looking at him—

Daryl looks away.

He doesn't look when Glenn scrambles to his feet, and he still doesn't look when the kid dashes out through the door.  Instead, Daryl stumbled backward until he hits the wall behind him.  Rage flares again, so he whirls around and hacks away at the wood planks with his fist.  He stops only when the knuckles are bleeding and needled with wood splinters.

When he reaches up to feel the side of his face, it's already raw and sore. 

It'll leave one hell of a bruise.

_Good_ , he thinks.

*

For a while after, Daryl manages to steer clear away from Glenn.

It's not hard when they're busy everyday running for their lives.  On rare occasions when they're not running for their lives, Daryl keeps himself busy, fixing their vehicles, changing break pads and fortifying the trucks with extra metal planks.  He checks the weapon supplies, retooling the rifles and oiling them where necessary.  He also starts working on his bike again, though he wouldn't be riding that gas-guzzler anywhere anytime soon.  Instead of sleeping, he wipes off the blood stain on his machete and cleans out the brain matter and guts greasing the arrows he's managed to retrieve for re-use. 

And all the while, he waits for a private visit from Sheriff Grimes.  Glenn is everyone's younger brother, but even more so to Rick, who would undoubtedly want to come after Daryl with a shotgun.

It doesn't happen.  It soon becomes clear that it won't ever happen, because Glenn hasn't talked.

Daryl wants to throttle the kid some more for being this spectacularly dumb, but the mere thought stops him cold, so he stops thinking altogether.

It helps that they get cornered by a pack of Walkers on one of their supply runs and then quickly get busy with killing and surviving, so there's no time left for things like thinking.  There's one second when one of the Walkers almost gets to T-Dog, but Shane and Daryl make a concerted and batshit insane effort to rescue him, so everyone comes out unscathed.  Mostly.

"Maybe there's no Woodbury," says T-Dog, when they're huddled together and licking their wounds.  The encounter's got him rattled, and he seems intent on washing down the aftertaste of it with whiskey.  "What then?  Can't run forever."

Andrea bandages T-Dog's scraped knee.  "It's too early to tell either way.  We shouldn't lose hope yet."

"Yeah," says Daryl, flatly, "'cause hopin' for the best's been working out real great so far." 

"And yet, we've done all right," says Dale, his mild voice fraught with that persistent note of hope. "We'll manage still."

Daryl waves away the bottle of whiskey T-Dog hands over, but Shane reaches for it and helps himself. 

"But for how long?" Shane asks no one in particular, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and staring blankly at somewhere above Rick's shoulders.  Ever since the fight, he doesn't seem able to meet Rick's eyes—or Lori's.  He doesn't usually say much, either, at least not while he's anywhere close to sobriety.  "How long, until they get to one of us for good?" 

It's a question that everyone's been thinking, but which no one has spoken out loud.  Until now.  And once it's voiced, it looms over them like it's got a tangible body, heavy and oppressive.

Rick is watching the children in a huddled group of their own at the far corner.  It's Glenn's turn to babysit, so the three of them are just messy mops of hair in various colors and sizes, bent over tattered notebooks and scribbling things on them with broken crayons. 

"We'll manage."  Rick's eyes are resting on his boy's head.  "Because we have to." 

There are no more words after that.  They watch the kids, like that's where they're storing all their broken hopes, and Daryl—

Daryl thinks he sees Glenn at the corner of his periphery. 

Daryl looks away.  Just like every time.

*

Dale finds a small town called Woodbury on a local map they've picked up on their last run.  After much talk, they decide to chance it.  
   
After a few minutes on the move, their procession of vehicles comes to a halt.  Daryl, about to radio the group and ask why the hell they've stopped, finds out the reason when Glenn climbs out of the RV.  The kid comes up to Daryl's pick-up and climbs into it instead and shuts the door behind him before Daryl has a chance to stop him.

The kid settles on the passenger seat and patiently waits for Daryl to start the truck again.  Daryl does, without a word.  He can't make the kid leave when he can't even look at him in the eye.

Once they're on the move again, Glenn says, "So, I've been thinking."

Daryl keeps his eyes on the road.  There are no Walkers after them, and they plow through broken-down cars in dead weeds. 

"Were you worried?" the kid asks. "About me?"

Daryl tightens his hands around the wheel.

"That was it," Glenn continues, undaunted by Daryl's silence.  "You were worried.  And you got mad.  Which got you drunk.  Which got you even more mad.  And then drunk again.  I think that's what they call a negative cycle.  Or, feedback.  Or...something." 

The kid says all this quickly, with words spilling over each other, a nervous habit whenever something's got him anxious and he's trying hard not to be. 

"And I think we were, are, all going slightly, maybe, possibly, _off-the-chart_ nuts, especially after finding Jenny dead like that," Glenn says, wringing his hands together.  "You were drunk and angry, and maybe had a good reason to be.  And I hit you pretty hard—apparently there's been some real pent-up feelings there I needed to let out—so, we'll call it even, okay?"

Daryl can feel Glenn watching him expectantly.  And there it is, right there, a way out from this crushing weight.  It would be easy to reach out and take it, because the kid is offering it, no questions, no conditions. 

Daryl's eyes remain on the dying world outside.  "That ain't how it works, Glenn."

"Who says?" Glenn shoots back, unconcerned. 

Apparently nothing's really changed, because with no more than two words, this kid still manages to aggrieve Daryl like nothing else in the world.  "It's not. It's just _not_ , alright?  It's not what I should've, I shouldn't have—"  Daryl fights the urge to crush his knuckles against something, _anything_ , until his hands don't work anymore.  "The hell is _wrong_ with you _,_ kid?  You got no sense left in your head, that it?  How the hell do you know I won't beat the shit out of you again?"

"Okay, first of all, there was no beating anything out of anyone—I was there, I should know—and second, I know you won't."

That does it.  Daryl brakes, hard, and whirls around to face the kid.  "How do you know?  How the fuck do you know _anything_?"

Glenn shrugs flippantly.  "Call it a feeling."

Daryl groans and rubs his face with one hand.  Frustration alone makes him want to climb up to the top of his own head and start clawing his brains out.

He thinks he sees Glenn's lips curl up at the corner.  "I told you, I've actually thought about it.  And I know."

Daryl feels wrung out and drained, through and through.  "Shit."

The kid coughs and says, "You know, that's one impressive shiner."  Before Daryl can flinch away, Glenn pokes at the faded purple and blue bruise on Daryl's face.

And the kid keeps poking at it, wow'ing and ow'ing, until Daryl has to swat the fingers away. "Quit it."

"I can _not_ believe my own tiny little girly hand—your words once, remember? Not mine—caused this much damage."

"Your head's addled."

"Admit it, I am a badass."

"You _sucker-punched me_."

"Hey, fair's fair," Glenn says, all cheerful.  "Playground rules.  Anything goes."  Daryl glares at him, and Glenn laughs.  "Right, okay, I admit it, you were so, _so_ drunk, which helped, like, a lot.  Shouldn't you be able to hold your drink, being a redneck and all?" 

"Right," Daryl snorts, "like you're one to talk about holdin' down drink."

There's no quick retort this time.  The kid is watching him, and there's a small, flitting grin on his face, like he's trying it on for size.  "I can't promise I won't do the same next time," Glenn says, quieter now, "but I'll try to be more careful.  And don't ever think I won't ask the same from you.  'Cause I will."

Glenn isn't talking about the punch, or even what happened in the tool shed.  Daryl turns away and starts the truck again.  It takes a while for them to catch up with the rest of the group, and that's when Daryl tells him, "You don't know me, kid."

"I do," Glenn says simply.  "I know you don't have to promise me you won't be touching whiskey for a while, because you won't.  So, see, I do know you."

The world outside is still dead, dried up and shriveled inward.  Absolutely nothing's changed.   But something loosens inside Daryl, even though he should know better.  He does know better. 

Still, Daryl unwraps one of his hands from the wheel and breathes in.

He can feel Glenn relax beside him.  "So, about that awesome bike of yours," the kid says brightly, draping his arm across the back of the driver's seat, "isn't it about time you, you know, get it off your truck and let it breathe a little?"

Daryl turns to stare at Glenn. "You're guilt-trippin' me into lettin' you have at my bike?  _That's_ your plan?"

"What, it's not working?"

Things get more bearable, after.

It's still the same old shitty life they've got, but things are better, even when they have to fight for their lives every moment with tooth and nail, even when their long-term plan doesn't exactly come through, and even when they think they're close to finding that so-called safe haven and fail.

And then, Carl Grimes gets sick.

*

They raid several in-store pharmacies, department stores, and run-down libraries for medicine and books on medicine.  None of them help.  The Grimes kid gets sicker and sicker, couching and shivering with every breath he takes.  Carol thinks it may be some complicated form of pneumonia, but she isn't sure.  No one is. 

Daryl looks in on Carl once, over the shoulders of the boy's worried parents, and sees how brittle the boy looks.  Daryl suddenly recalls watching Annie over Merle's sunken shoulders—Annie, withering on the white hospital bed for months on end, until she was nothing but a slab of rubbery skin thinly stretched over frail bones—and doesn't go look in on Carl Grimes again.

Once they find a secluded and abandoned sawmill where they can lay low for a while, Lori and Rick are constantly at their son's side.  Carol and Glenn try to decipher the medical books.  Andrea and Shane try to hold the group together while T-Dog and Daryl try their damnedest to keep the rest of them protected from the Walkers.  Dale is stationed next to the radio and sends repeated calls for help.  The only response he receives is static.

None of them sleep.

Glenn is in the back of Daryl's truck, bent over a thick textbook, when Daryl brings over a cup of coffee.   The kid is tracing over the typed words with his index finger and frantically murmuring to himself.  There is also an occasional flipping of pages and even more furious scribbling on a notepad on his lap.

Daryl watches for a moment, but soon it becomes hard on his eyes and ears.  Daryl reaches out and folds Glenn's fingers into his hand.

Glenn looks up at him, eyes wide and startled.  Only when Daryl is sure the kid isn't going to plunge right back into the book does he let go of Glenn's hand and place the coffee in it instead.

Glenn's fingers are still shaking when he takes a sip from the cup.  He looks a little less dead than a moments ago, but now he's staring into the coffee like he could find the answer written at the bottom of the cup if he looked hard enough.  "My parents wanted me to be a doctor. That was why I was pre-med.  I've never wanted to be one, and never ever really learned anything before I took the year off and delivered pizza and played RPGs instead.  I don't—I don't know _anything_ , but Rick's trusting me to make sense of this gibberish, and I—"

"Hey," says Daryl, roughly. "Quit it."

Daryl watches anxiety and exhaustion battling for an upper hand on the kid's face.  The latter eventually wins out.  "Okay, yeah, I know," Glenn says, scrubbing at his face with his hands until it looks almost raw. "I know, I'm totally losing it."

"So what else is new," Daryl grunts, after stripping every trace of concern from his voice.

"That's—" Glenn stops trying to claw his eyes out and looks at Daryl again. "That's real comforting, thanks.  Seriously, you've got like, skills, with this whole reassuring thing."

The kid sounds marginally normal again, so Daryl lets that one go without retaliation. "Get some sleep," he orders instead. "You're no good like this."

After some fidgeting, Glenn eventually dozes off, one hand curled up over the edge of the textbook still on his chest.  Once he's sure the kid isn't going to be jostled awake, Daryl unfurls Glenn's hand and removes the book from his grip.  Before marking the page and shutting it, Daryl catches a glimpse of long and winding words that seem to spread out without an end in sight.  Another world exists on this page, a terrifying world where not even crossbows and machetes can fend off death. 

Daryl drapes a jacket over Glenn, sets the book aside, and goes back to keeping watch.

The Grimes kid's temperature doesn't let up.

Lori's eyes are constantly red-rimmed.  The lines on Rick's face grow deeper.

*

The first shot cracks the air. 

The second shot Shane fires hits dangerously close to the tanker truck, but it also stops the three men who are skulking about the barn where they've been keeping their trucks. 

"Don't even think about it," Shane says, leveling the barrel of his rifle at the intruders when one of them reaches to cock his gun.  Daryl backs up Shane; Rick and Glenn bottle them from each side.  T-Dog is blocking the exit.

All three of the intruders freeze in their places.  They might actually have working brains after all, because they slowly drop their guns to the ground.

"P-please, please don't shoot," the shortest of the three stutters, jittery as hell.  Daryl figures they've got nothing to worry about from this one except that the guy might shoot himself in the foot trying to run for it.   The other two, however, are another story.

"Hey, no harm no foul, right?" the second, a taller and wider one, says. "We were just admirin' this shiny thing right here, weren't we, boys?"  He looks around widely at his friends, and then gestures at Shane's tanker. 

"Nah-ah," says T-Dog, cocking his rifle with a loud snap, when the man tries to run an admiring hand down the hood. 

The man retracts his hand, but not the slimy smile plastered on his face.  "You still got 'em all running, eh?  Lucky you." 

Rick shoots a look at the tanker and then at the man.  "What's it to you?"

"Well, see here, we got stranded in the middle of nowhere, 'cause our tank's completely run out and there ain't a single drop left in this godawful country.  Been having a hell of a time dodging the undead bastards, 'til we saw you folks all squared away here, with this full tank to boot.  Thought maybe you might all be feelin' somewhat charitable and spare us some."

T-Dog actually snorts out loud.  Daryl can't say he's feeling all that charitable, either.

"If you tried asking nicely first," says Rick, after sharing a look with the rest of the group, "without trying to steal it from right under our noses, then maybe.  As it is, no."

The middle one, the one who first went for his shotgun, speaks up for the first time, "You wouldn't have given it to us if we'd just asked nicely." 

The words are clipped and only barely hinging on politeness, but Rick returns an even look.  "We'll never know now, will we?"

The two men lock their gazes for several seconds, neither giving an inch.

The tall, loud-mouthed one looks at his friend and then at Rick.  "Aw, c'mon, pal.  How hard could it be to share a few gallons?  We didn't do nothin' to you, did we now?  We're just tryin' to go back home, same as everyone."

"And where is this home of yours?" asks Shane, rather dubiously.

The short, fidgety one tugs at his friend. "Go on then, Johnny, tell 'em."

But the loudmouth—Johnny—waits for the quiet one to nod before he chooses to answer, "A few dozen miles north of here, there's a place called Woodbury.  That's where we're at."

The name they've been scouring after for weeks, thrown out so casually, stops everyone short.  

"You're lying," Rick says simply.  If Daryl didn't know him better by now, he would've sounded pretty damn convincing.

"No, sir, he ain't."  The short one fidgets some more and says, "We've just come out to pick up supplies, but didn't realize every single pump's gone dry in this area.  And we ain't gonna walk back, no way in hell, no, not with those things out there."

"And we've gotta go back, man," Johnny, the loudmouthed stooge, says, looking all kinds of jittery.  "It's safe there, you know?  We got everything there, electricity, running water—hell, we even got ourselves a doc."

Daryl can't stop himself from glancing at Rick, whose face has gone carefully blank at the last bit of information.  Daryl doesn't have to look around to know that Dale, Shane, and Glenn—everyone—are doing the same.

The quiet one must be smart enough to know when something's changed, because he's now looking at all of them with a speculative gleam in the eye. 

"Tell you what," he starts, after a long pause, "how about we take you with us, in exchange for some gas?"

Rick keeps his silence, grim and cautious, so it's Shane who asks, with his gun still raised, "How do we even know you're telling the truth?"

"'Suppose you don't," he drawls, and turns to Rick. "But you can always try asking nicely, see if that gets you anywhere."

The man's smile makes Daryl's trigger finger twitch.

*

The man's name is Harold, and he is the de facto leader of the three stooges.  He promises the directions to Woodbury and the magic word to get the gate open.  He rubs Daryl the wrong way.

"Yeah, but does anyone rub you the right way, ever?" Glenn pipes up, and ducks away before Daryl can shut his clever mouth for him.

"Wait, are we _actually_ considering this?" Shane doesn't sound happy, but he hardly ever does. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but they just tried to steal our gas."

"We all do what we've got to do to survive," Dale says understandingly, which surprises exactly no one. "Can't fault them for that."

Daryl's got no problem with faulting them for exactly that, but he keeps that opinion to himself.  "Even if they're from where they say they are, how the hell do we know they won't just ditch us in the middle of the road?"

"We've got gas," Glenn points out.  "And they don't.  Shouldn't that keep them in line, at least for a while?"

"Do we really have a choice?" asks Andrea, like a "no" is the foregone conclusion. "It's one thing if they just said they knew where Woodbury is, but if they really have a doctor with them, then," she pauses and glances at Rick. "Then, we have to take that chance."

Rick, coiled in tight, studiously maintains his silence, looking both grateful and anxious at the same time.  There are dark circles under his eyes, and he looks like he hasn't slept the last eight days—Daryl figures he probably hasn't. 

"Hell, we've grasped at thinner straws before," says T-Dog, somehow managing to sound careless and unworried. "This ain't all that different."

"No," Daryl agrees with T-Dog, mostly because he knows Rick can't. "Reckon it ain't."

When they put it to a vote, the decision is unanimous.

*

They follow the complex directions through the highway and into twisted and entwined roads, until they reach forests so dense that they have to slow their vehicles to crawl along the dirt roads.  The trees have sickly green sheens under the sizzling mid-day sun, and the air feels heavy with a bitter tang of burning.  Even Glenn, in the passenger seat, says uncharacteristically little.

"Daryl—" the kid starts, and then trails to an uncertain stop. 

"Yeah," says Daryl, reading anxiety in the kid's silence, and leaves it at that.

Still, no one can bring themselves to object and turn back, not when they know Lori's cradling Carl in the RV, her arms around him like that would keep him with her, healthy and whole.  Not when there's a chance they might actually get to this Woodbury.  Not when there's a chance they might get to stop running. 

And all possible objections disappear when they finally reach the end of the path.

One by one, they stumble out of their trucks.

"Well," says Dale, "this is certainly...different."

In front of them is a large grey compound, surrounded by concrete walls and barbed wire.  The gate has been reinforced with layers of metal, making the entire structure look and feel like a fortress.  Daryl counts three watchtowers with floodlights, manned with people armed with rifles and other assorted heavy weaponry. 

"They converted a goddamn prison," says T-Dog, awed.

"Makes sense," Rick says, sounding somewhat contemplative but leaning more heavily on apprehensive.  "A prison's designed to keep people from going in and out.  It can certainly keep the Walkers out, too."

"Looks like they've been doin' a fine job at it, too."  T-Dog points at the bodies of Walkers around them.  The surrounding grounds are littered with them.  There are dirt-mounds shaped like graves, and scorched pits scar the land like a battleground.

"Mines," says Shane, tension radiating from the tight grip he has on his shotgun, and Daryl feels the sweat-soaked t-shirt sticking to his skin.

Johnny looks pretty damned smug about the whole display.  "Something, ain't it?  Just make sure never to stumble on one of them outside the fences.  One wrong step will blow your foot clean off."

Slowly, they step onto the narrow, fenced pathway leading to the only gate that would take them inside the walls.  Harold radioed in earlier to say they were bringing in a few people, so the people inside should know that a group of people approaching the walls isn't to be shot on sight, but that doesn't quite make Daryl feel reassured, and it sure as hell doesn't make him leave behind his crossbow and shotgun.

Once they reach the compound, a small door set within the steel gate creaks open.  Several men come through the doorway, one by one.

"Well, hello folks," says the first one out, a heavy-set, genial-looking man wearing a thick, rumpled suit.  "Welcome to Woodbury."

The man, at first glance, doesn't look all that threatening or dangerous.  And he doesn't look at all threatened by the arrival of the straggly strangers, either, but that's probably because he's got several armed men behind him, even if he doesn't seem to be carrying one himself.

"Daryl," Glenn says abruptly, and something in his voice makes Daryl stop counting the number of guns currently aimed toward them—seven—and turn his eyes to what the kid is staring at.  It's not just Glenn: T-Dog has turned several shades paler, and Rick is tense and stiff as they watch the last man emerging through the door.

Daryl's eyes land on him, too, and then he can't get a single word out.  His mouth has gone completely dry. 

The man meets Daryl's eyes, and stops in his tracks.

For one long moment, no one utters a word.

"Daryl," says Merle, finally.

 

**iii.**

  
Daryl was twenty-one when he first thought of a life outside their little Georgia farm town, and twenty-three when he stopped thinking altogether.

After they had burned the acres of sick crops for two years in a row, Merle told him, ruddy-faced and breath drenched in whiskey, "Get outta here while you can." 

Daryl looked at his brother, his strong, callused hands that had always seemed larger than life, and did not answer.

Because he knew, even then, that you couldn't ever leave your family behind.

*

Woodbury's got rules.  A shitload of them.

There are duty rosters, scheduled tasks, and assigned and maintained posts.  "Our workload is adjusted and checked every week," the man who greets them explains, having appointed himself their tour guide, "so that everyone gets a fair and equal share of work."  They have over forty-seven people inside, says the man, so they all need rules if they want to survive and co-exist together.  And so far, he claims, it's going just _swimmingly_. 

Daryl only half listens and uses the other half to restrain the urge to smack the smug man around some.  Whenever that urge is about to win him over, Glenn pokes at him and Daryl snipes at the kid in return and the ensuing back-and-forth distracts Daryl long enough to keep him from doing anything too stupid.

They've got a pretty sweet set-up here in Woodbury Penitentiary, though, Daryl has to give them that much.  They converted an entire cellblock into a dormitory-like residential area, with a cafeteria and even a rec room on the same floor.  There are two fully operational electricity generators and a backup running in one wing of the prison.  There's a rudimentary alarm system, and they're just about to design an emergency evacuation plan just in case the compound ever gets overrun by the Walkers.  They even try to meet every few days for a town hall meeting, to resolve disputes and other pesky issues.

Their tour guide is the leader of Woodbury; he used to be a mayor of the closest town.  He calls himself the Warden now.

"If that's a joke," T-Dog tells Daryl in a low voice, "I ain't getting it." 

Shane asks pointed questions about their safety and how Woodbury defends itself, and the Warden is only too eager to answer.  "Oh, we've got men tasked with general security, and there're people manning the watchtowers at all corners, twenty-four seven. We even conduct regularly-scheduled sweeps of the surrounding areas to keep ourselves safe."  The Warden is grinning, practically giddy. "Hunting parties, if you know what I mean.  And the mines—ever seen them in action?  Those things dispatch any undead bastard mighty quickly, I assure you."  

Walking up one of the many grey corridors inside the compound, Rick remains inscrutable. "Yes, we've seen the aftermath outside."

"Marvelously effective, aren't they?  We planted them along the prison walls, so we mostly have to concentrate on guarding the front gate, which doesn't have any underneath.  Keeps us all safe.  Merle's idea."

Merle, they find out, is charged with their security. 

If T-Dog thinks it's another joke, he doesn't share it with Daryl.

"I'm glad you found your brother again," Glenn tells Daryl quietly, just as the tour is finally winding up.  The kid does look glad enough, but he's taking in the sights of Woodbury with something akin to complete disbelief. 

Daryl punches him in the arm.  "Lighten up, Glenn. Things are finally, goddamn finally, lookin' up."

Glenn doesn't seem entirely convinced, but then the kid wouldn't know a good thing if it bit him in the face.  And truth be told, Daryl can't quite make himself believe, either—not even after grabbing his brother by the arms and not letting go for a long time.  Not even after watching Merle's craggy face stretching thin with a broad smile.  Not even after hearing Merle tell him, "Missed you, too, kid," with his same old gruff voice. 

Not even now, as he watches his brother saunter along at the Warden's side and lead the way around the compound.

His brother is alive. 

He's got a stump where a hand used to be, but Merle's _alive_.

So maybe yeah, things are finally, goddamn _finally_ , looking up.

*

"No vote.  No majority rule.  Not this time," says Rick, turning to look each and every one of the group in the eye.  "This time, we all get to make our own choices."

His voice echoes in the hollow space of the prison's visiting room, and everyone's face is as ashen as the cement walls surrounding them.  They're mostly scattered around the table at the center, but Daryl stands against the far wall next to the exit, because old habits die hard. 

"Obviously Daryl's staying," continues Rick.  He hesitates only for a second before adding, "We—Lori and me and Carl—we're staying."

It's no surprise: Lori already took Carl to see the doctor the moment they entered the compound. 

"But for the rest of you—I've talked to the Warden, and he'd be more than happy to have us here.  But you got no reason or obligation to stay, not if that isn't what you want."

No one says anything for a while.

"To tell you the truth," Dale starts, rubbing his eyebrow that seems stiff with sweat, "I don't know how long I can go on running."   His smile is weak, cracked around the edges.  "We needed a place to catch our breath.  We wanted to stop running.  And maybe this place is it."

No one can seem to disagree.  Shane, eventually, shifts in his seat.  "Maybe, but we don't know any of these people, and just because Merle's with them, doesn't mean we can just go about trusting them.  And it's not as if Merle's presence installs confidence—no offence, Daryl."

Daryl shrugs.  That's no surprise, either.

"None of them seem terrified," says a quiet voice. 

Everyone turns to Carol, and she continues haltingly, "It's just that, the people here...they don't seem afraid.  They all look as bone-tired as I do, but they don't look like they're fearing for their lives every second they're drawing breath." 

_Like we are_ is unspoken, but all of them hear it clearly enough.  Even Shane's got nothing to say to that.

"Yeah," says Rick, finally.  He looks as tired as Daryl's ever seen him.  "Yeah, there's that."

In the end, everyone stays.

*

The Grimes family immediately disappears into the east wing, the designated medical ward.  Carol gets a position in the medical ward, too, so she and Sophia go with them.  Andrea gets a gig at the cafeteria, and the rest of the men get assigned to security because they need more bodies there.

Daryl gets sentry duty, and is told to report directly to his brother.

He watches Merle ordering people about for some time before wandering into the prison's security room. "So you're this big man with responsibilities now, huh?" says Daryl, and feels a lazy smile on his face. "Too high and mighty to be seen with your little brother?"

Merle gives him a toothy grin.  "That's right, kid.  Don't go givin' me grief over it."  

Merle is sitting in front of old monitors, and a couple of them are flickering with the grainy feed from the single camera they allow to operate just outside the gate.  The compound runs on minimal power, allocated only for general lighting and the food storage in the cafeteria, but they also spare some to keep up the minimum security.  The proximity alarm is on, blinking steadily on the board mounted on the wall.  Daryl's got his doubts as to whether it would work at all, but he's not in any hurry to see it in action.

Daryl sinks on the ratty couch that looks like it's seen better days—then again, they all have—and raises an eyebrow at a small fridge under the desk. "What you got stowed there?  Beer?"

" _Cold_ beer," Merle corrects him, nudging the fridge open with his foot. "Well, see now, power—power's got its privileges."

After retrieving a bottle of beer from the fridge, Merle takes a box-shaped thing out from a drawer of his desk and hands both of them over to Daryl.

For the life of him, Daryl can't recall the last time he's had a cold drink of any kind.  He savors the feel of the cool bottle under his fingertips, admiring the droplets of condensation forming on the surface, before turning his attention to the other item: an old video tape, with the label starting to peel off. 

Once Daryl reads the title, his jaw drops.  "You're fuckin' with me."

Merle's grin widens.  "Now, now, would I ever do that?"

"Oh _hell_ yeah, you would." 

Merle waves off Daryl's answer and pops the tape into the VCR connected to the monitors. 

The tape slowly whirls inside the machine and rewinds itself, and Daryl nurses the beer in his hand.  "You ever gonna tell me how you ended up here?"  

Merle shrugs and opens another bottle for himself easily with one hand.  "Met up with the group of 'em in Atlanta.  Saved a few of their asses.   And the rest, well, the rest's a long story."

"We've got time, now."

Merle grows quiet.  "That we do."

Daryl thinks of Merle, out there and alone, with nothing and nobody to watch his back.

He doesn't look at where Merle's hand used to be.

"We went lookin' for you, back in the city, after," says Daryl. "You weren't there no more." 

Daryl's thought maybe the words would stop eating at him once they were spoken out loud, but no, they're still in him, heavy and unmoving, like they've taken root.

Merle pauses. "We?"

_We_ , thinks Daryl.  Rick, Glenn and T-Dog.  It feels like years, not mere weeks, ago, wading through the rotting bodies under the relentless sun just to find Merle, and suddenly this is the last thing Daryl wants to talk about.   "It don't matter," he says, bringing the beer to his lips again. "It's behind us now, anyhow." 

"That's right," says Merle. "The Dixon boys are together again."

Merle smiles, smooth and fractured in unseen places.  But it doesn't matter, so Daryl doesn't ask.  They never needed words between them, and Daryl's been taught never to pick at scabs—that only leaves scars.

_Merle is here_ , thinks Daryl.  _Alive_.  _Nothing else matters._

They watch a taped recording of the 1999 Falcons game in a raggedly old VCR and drink the cold beer in silence. 

*

Daryl's assigned room, if one could call it that, is a little grey hole-in-the-wall next to Merle's, shaped like all the other prison cells that the people in Woodbury have already made their home.  Instead of roads covered in dust and tumbleweeds, they now have harsh florescent lights and steel doors and hollow hallways that seem to stretch out forever.  So Daryl doesn't mind one bit about picking up his weapons from the armory and climbing up in the sweltering heat to the watchtowers for his shifts—especially when he gets to shoot, which doesn't happen often.

Just like the Warden promised, they are mostly kept safe from the Walkers.  Once or twice a day, an odd Walker or two might wander close to the perimeter, but they rarely come at them in a group of five or more—and when that does happen, it quickly becomes a shooting gallery, and the dull, wearied faces of the men on duty suddenly come alive with anticipation.

"C'mon, c'mon," says Johnny, his fingers drumming on his shotgun and eyeing a group that's hovering at the edge of the forests, "come on over, you fuckers, and let me blow your undead brains out.  Let's have some _fun_ , for a change, fer cryin' out loud."

Daryl studies the walking corpses shambling along some good distance from the prison's sturdy walls.  There are about six of them he can make out with the naked eye.  The rest of the men on watch are waiting for the Walkers to come within range. 

Daryl reaches for his scoped rifle, aims at one of the Walkers' heads, and pulls the trigger.

A single gunshot echoes, and one of them topples.

"Good shot," says Harold, taking his eyes away from the binoculars.  He sounds reluctantly impressed.

Daryl shrugs off the compliment, and doesn't stop for a second before taking another shot.

Another topples.

"Hey, leave some for the rest of us," Johnny whines loudly, before taking his shot.

The rest of the Walkers are down in less than a minute.

_A turkey shoot_ , recalls Daryl.

For the first time in months, Daryl sleeps soundly that night.

*

"So, what was wrong with your kid?" asks Daryl.

"Some sort of lung infection," says Rick, uncertain in the way he rarely is.

T-Dog stops stirring crumbled bits of bread in a bowl of soup.  "Shit, _I_ could've told you that." 

"Pneumonia, and other complications arising from it," says a man who's just arrived at their cafeteria table.  He's wearing a small, wry grin. "But yes, I suppose it's really just some sort of lung infection."

"Doctor Stevens," says Rick, standing up, and introduces him to T-Dog, who has the grace to look a little sheepish, and Glenn, who already seems to know the Doc.  "And this is Daryl—"

"—Dixon, Merle Dixon's brother," the Doc says, politely. "I heard.  Welcome to Woodbury."

The Doc joins for them for the meal, and explains how common illnesses are quickly becoming dangerous to the survivors.  "Pneumonia can be quite dangerous as it is.  Even the ones without severe complications, or even just some common cold that should clear up in a couple of weeks with the right treatment, can easily become big problems to us now.  And we just don't know how long our medical supplies would last or stay usable."

"Still, why not let people know this place exists?" Rick asks, sounding troubled. "The people outside are exposed and vulnerable to the Walkers' attacks everyday, and they could certainly use your help."

"I don't think we can afford to leave the door wide open to every survivor," says the Doc.  "If we do, we'd be quickly overrun.  It's unfortunate, but we've got to preserve our resources, especially when we're not even sure how long we need to wait until all of the infected die out.  As it is, we're already short on a lot of things."

"Wait, you think we can actually wait this out?" asks Glenn, like he can't decide between being incredulous and hopeful at the notion.  "Just like that?"

The Doc pushes up his glasses.  "Well, the first month of the outbreak wiped out a lot of us, mostly because it was so sudden, and so fast, and no one knew what in the world was happening.  But people who made it this far know how to fight off the infected, so now there aren't enough of us around to feed them, to sustain them.  It's a numbers game."

Rick considers it.  "We've seen them going after animals.  Livestock.  They must be able to live off of them for quite some time, even if their primary food source"— _us_ , he doesn't say—"becomes scarce." 

"Yes, but even in that, there are limits.  They can't travel far distances, can they?   And they sure as hell can't drive.  And we don't know yet how they would react to different environments, don't know anything about their physiology, how they long could withstand the lack of sustenance.  If we can hole up and wait, maybe a year or two, they might just die out—if we're real lucky."

"The army might still come up with a plan," says T-Dog, though he doesn't sound like he believes it himself, at least not since their last visit to the deserted army base.  "Could be that we might be gettin' rid of them sooner rather than later."

"I personally wouldn't put too much stock in the authorities," says the Doc, not unkindly.  "It's more than likely they're the ones who brought this upon us.  But I suppose you never know."

Might.  Maybe.  Suppose.  Eventually.  It sounds like a whole lot of nothing to Daryl, but at least it's something to cling to.  And things could actually be worse—Daryl has the firsthand knowledge of exactly _how much_ —so he can't blame them for clinging for all they're worth.  And that seems to be the way of things in Woodbury.  There're mostly men here, but some are families with women and children.  Most of them keep their heads down, keeping to themselves and to their counsel—and hope like hell they could wait this out by staying well inside the compound at all times. 

For a moment, Daryl makes himself imagine a year in this place.  He can't.  

Afterward, the Doc returns to the medical ward and to his patients, and Glenn stays behind to see Andrea.  The rest of them are just about to return to their respective posts when Merle comes in from the corridor outside, followed by Harold.

Merle stops and looks at Rick and T-Dog, and then at Daryl.

"Merle," acknowledges Rick.

"Rick Grimes," says Merle, just as Harold comes up to Merle's side.  Harold doesn't appear to be noticing the sudden change of mood.

_Or maybe he does notice,_ thinks Daryl, at the man's idle smile. _Too well_.

"Daryl tells me ya'll tried to find me and get me back.  'preciate that," Merle tells Rick, almost cheerfully. "'Course, it would've been mighty more charitable if you lot hadn't left me on that damned roof to rot in the first place."

The air thins between them. 

"But then again," Merle drawls, with a glance at Daryl at their side, "you did take care of my little brother for this long.  How 'bout we let bygones be bygones, huh?"

T-Dog doesn't quite meet Merle's eyes, but Rick does.  "Thank you," he says, in the tone that's amiable and unreadable at the same time, "for being a bigger man."

Daryl, in turn, says nothing, even if the idea that he has been _taken care of_ doesn't sit well with him.   Even if he might have seen a lie in those genial, reassuring words, reflected on the edge of Merle's smile.

Instead, he steps aside and lets Rick and T-Dog pass before joining up with Merle and Harold.  

*

It's some kid's birthday, and there's a lot of fuss over it.

A girl, apparently Sophia and Carl's first new friend at Woodbury, is turning thirteen.  So now one corner of the grey roof, where men sometimes come up to enjoy drowsy afternoons with beer and smoke when they're off-shift, is covered with whatever cheerful stuff could be scraped from the bottom of the storage room.  Pink and sky blue balloons are tied to the railings, neon-bright tableclothes are covering the drab plastic tables, and in the middle of it all, a large birthday cake in the same colors as the balloons is melting under the late afternoon sun. 

Once the food is served and the cake is cut, the children start running around smearing frosting on each other.  The birthday girl bumps into Glenn, who ends up with blue cream plastered on his face.  When Sophia giggles at him, Glenn turns around to dab some on her nose.  Carl's still looking ghostly white, but he laughs from the chair he's been sitting on for the entire afternoon, and Lori is laughing alongside him.  For a while there, it got to the point where Daryl couldn't even remember what Lori looked like smiling.

Andrea and Carol bring over leftover pieces to Daryl and Dale, and together they watch Glenn's vain attempt to get some cake on Rick's face, much to Carl's delight.

"You got your breath back now?" Daryl asks Dale.

Dale hums happily over his plate of food, so Andrea answers instead, placing an affectionate hand on Dale's shoulder, "He thinks he might've left some of it behind at I-75."

"Well, we can afford to wait for it now," says Carol, eagerly digging into the too-sugary and sticky cake.  "We've got time, don't we?"

"Looks like it," agrees Daryl.  Glenn and his attempts see some success, and now Rick has pink frosting on his jacket.  Rick, in turn, is threatening to go after Lori. 

And this time, Daryl can almost imagine a year in this place.   Almost.  Try as he might, he can't quite figure Merle into the picture. 

The sun eventually settles over the horizon, but no one is in a hurry to get inside. 

There's no need anymore.

*

"Looks like Carl's really getting better.  He was up and walking around when I saw him this morning.  Still coughing quite a bit, though."

There's no need to check in with everyone to find out how they're all doing, because Glenn's taken to providing Daryl with daily updates, along with the lunch he begs off Andrea.  Today's menu includes two cans of beans and corn, which they finish off quickly, and afterwards Glenn helps Daryl with truck repairs.

"Hold that wire," orders Daryl, pulling out the worn-out fan belt.  It's completely frayed at the edges, like it's seen too much friction.

"And Dale's got a job fixing the hydraulics down in the basement," Glenn chatters away while dutifully holding the wire away from the air compressor.  "He thinks they can use him there, so maybe he'll switch his workgroup.  Oh, and I've been helping Sue with coming up with an evacuation plan.  Andrea told her I'm good with maps and blueprints, and she thinks there's this tunnel that used to run all the way through the northwest wing, right below the Warden's office, before the whole thing went under some refit in the 60s.  If we can find an entrance, or maybe blow a hole through it or something, then we could—"

Daryl lets him go on for some time, only because he might have— _might_ have—missed the kid's blathering.  But that doesn't actually make him pay any more attention to Glenn's droning than usual, so Daryl's only been half listening when Glenn says, "—it's a little, I don't know, a bit weird here sometimes?"

It takes a couple of seconds for Daryl to parse that.  He looks up from under the hood.  "What're you on about?"

"People here seem so—I don't know."  The kid is tentative with his words like he's feeling for tripwires, and it grates.  "I mean, the guys in security are so gungho and trigger-happy, but the rest are always so quiet.  Sue's all right, but she doesn't talk much, and...it's just so bipolar."

"Right."  Daryl taps Glenn's forehead with his knuckle.  "So, now you got time to sit around and bitch 'bout things, that it?"

Glenn frowns and pushes Daryl's hand away, leaving a streak of oil on his forehead.  "If you say so."

Two full minutes pass without another word from Glenn.  It's pathetic, because that's how long it takes for Daryl to cave.  "Okay, really, _what_?  Exactly what died and crawled up your butt?"

Glenn turns to him again and hesitates some more.  "It's just, I have this...feeling."

"Wait, this your Chinese bullshit again?"

"And we're back to that now? _Again_?"

Glenn's exasperation doesn't hold much anger; it's almost fond, even, the way Glenn is looking at him, and the hell of it is that it doesn't annoy Daryl all that much anymore—and _that_ annoys Daryl.  Severely.

"This one ain't gonna work," Daryl says tersely, dropping the old fan belt.  "Go find me another one from storage."

The brusque tone doesn't seem to bother Glenn one bit.  In fact, it's the opposite: the kid's now grinning like he's totally got Daryl's number. "You got it," Glenn answers cheerily and disappears into the next room. 

Glenn hasn't returned by the time Daryl's already moved on to fixing a hole in the fan clutch.  After a couple of moments, Daryl drops the wrench into the toolbox and follows after the kid. 

"You fall into a hole in there or somethin'?"  He pushes the storage door open with his foot, rubbing a piece of cloth over the grease stains on his hands.

His feet tumble into an awkward stop when he finds Merle standing by the tool rack, across from Glenn.  The kid's shoulders are set rigid, his hand on a brand-new fan belt.

"—tells me you're shyin' away from the job," Merle is saying, "askin' question after question. You ain't some delicate sissie, are you now?" 

Daryl starts, "What's—"

"It's fine," Glenn cuts in, before Daryl can put in another word.  "I'll be more than glad to do the work exactly as I'm told," the kid tells Merle, slowly and respectfully.  Coming from Glenn, the gesture is close to an insult.

Merle doesn't notice, though; he looks quite pleased as he nods approvingly.  "That's right, son.  We all gotta pull our weight."

"I'll be there on the next run," says Glenn.  On his way out, he hands over the replacement belt to Daryl with a quiet, "Here." 

Daryl doesn't turn to watch Glenn leave.  He only listens to the sound of the door closing behind him. 

"Learns quick, don't he?" says Merle. "Good kid."

It's hard to tell whether Merle means it, but Daryl doesn't ask.  He never did before, and there's no reason to start now. 

Daryl nods in the direction of the garage. "Help me with this."

With Merle's help, Daryl's truck is put together and fixed up in less than an hour.

Still, it's beginning to feel a little like walking a tightrope.

*

It's yet another all-too-familiar scene: the Costco's parking lot is half-full, haphazardly parked cars hinting at people's presence, but up close, there're only emaciated and shriveled bodies, sprawled across the lot like discarded clothes.  Nothing's moving, save for empty garbage cans eerily rolling this way and that in a draft of wind. 

"We came down there once before and it was pretty clean," says Harold, as they shuffle out of the truck, every one of them armed to the teeth.  "Should be pretty safe still." 

Once in a while, the men in security sweep the towns surrounding Woodbury to make sure the Walkers aren't drawing too close and pick up supplies while they're at it.  Its other purpose seems to be to stretch their legs and vent their built-up frustration.  Shane has a few new weapons he's picked out from the impressive array of firearms in the armory that once belonged to the prison guards.  Most of the men from security, including Glenn, are carrying their .22.  Merle prefers precision rifles.

"Didn't know you were in this group," says Harold, just as Daryl's about to walk past him.

"I know how to hunt," Daryl answers slowly. "Ask Merle."

It doesn't sit right with Daryl, having to throw his brother's name around like it's got weight, but it works.  Harold grunts and steps aside.

There's no power left in the building, so they leave the main doors open and use their flashlights to make their way inside.  "Let's make this quick," Harold orders, directing each of them to a specific section of the store. 

Once Harold disappears with Merle into one aisle, Daryl turns on his heels and finds Glenn near the rows of carts.  The kid looks up at Daryl, and then wordlessly reaches for one of the carts.  They settle into an easy, practiced rhythm: Daryl lights their path and looks out for any other movement while Glenn drops random supplies into the cart. 

"You gonna tell me about it anytime soon?" Daryl asks, a few minutes in.

Glenn picks up two boxes of canned peaches and examines the shelves again.  "Spaghetti-Os with meatballs or...Ravioli-Os?"  He reaches for a box and reads the label.  "Ravioli-Os.  Seriously?"

Daryl doesn't press for an answer that he knows he doesn't want to hear anyway.  Instead, he takes the boxes from Glenn's hands and helps him pile them in the cart.

At the breakfast aisle, they pass by human remains that look like half-finished taxidermy projects. 

"God, that's nasty," says Glenn, pushing the cart a little more quickly. 

Daryl shrugs past it.  "Seen worse, all of us."

"Yeah, but you know, this?"  Glenn waves his flashlight at the pile of mutilated bodies. "This general godawfulness of things?  Never actually gets old."

The kid sounds close to normal again, which should've been enough to calm Daryl's nerves somewhat, but there's something else in the air.  Everything's quiet except for the occasional noise of the carts being rolled around in other corners of the large store, but Daryl feels stretched thin and taut, a rubber band about to snap. 

Then he sees, between rows of cornflakes and pop-tarts, an oddly stilted shadow moving in the opposite direction of the white beam of his flashlight. 

" _Down_ ," Daryl yells, and Glenn ducks just before Daryl lets his arrow fly.  The shape crumbles, but another shadow is moving in on them.  And then another.

Swallowing a stream of curses, Daryl grabs the kid by his jacket and pulls him out of the way before spinning his crossbow around, only to have a rotting arm swipe it away from him.  He loses his momentum and rolls onto the cement floor. 

And now there are loud gunshots echoing from all directions of the store.  In a second, Daryl's up again on all fours, blindly pulling out the rifle strapped to his back and then pumping a couple of rounds into a bloody and decomposing head in front of him. 

When he swings around, the face of another Walker is inches away from his.

An arrow pierces through the side of its head before its teeth descend on him.  Daryl risks a glance back at Glenn, who lowers the crossbow and quickly reloads it with another steel-tipped arrow, exactly how he's been taught, before shooting down another Walker at the end of the aisle. 

Glenn steps around the fallen boxes of cereals and holds out a hand to pull Daryl up.  "You hurt?"

Once on his feet again, Daryl presses one foot down on the neck of the Walker and reaches for his machete.

"Daryl," the kid asks insistently, "did it get you?"

"No."  Daryl rolls his shoulders and swings his machete to cut off the Walker's head, for good measure. "Stop with your frettin'."

"C'mon," Glenn says, and with a hand on Daryl's arm, guides him away from the still-twitching corpse. 

Just as they turn the corner, they see another group of Walkers advancing on them.  Daryl hears Glenn sigh next to him.  "You're right," Daryl says, and adjusts his grip on the machete. "This shit ain't never gettin' old."

They fight off a few more Walkers as well as the pungent smell of the rotten fruit and vegetables so they can reach Shane and another man from security, both backed into the corner of the produce section.  It takes several very long minutes to fight their way out to the sunlight.  Harold and Merle are already in the truck, and once all of them jump inside, they're off.

"You really okay?" Glenn asks when they're safely on their way, fretting like a mother hen some more over the scratches Daryl got from running into broken crates.

Daryl lets him, until he sees Merle in the passenger seat.  When Daryl shrugs off Glenn's hand, the kid lets go without protest. 

" _That_ ," Shane spits out at Harold, "was your version of safe?  That how you get your kicks, is that it?"

"Keeps us on our toes," Harold answers leisurely.  He hasn't broken a sweat.  "And now we know all of you can hold your own."

Glenn stares at Harold, not even trying to hide his disbelief.  "We should've checked it out long before going in.  Walking in, all guns blazing, and without a clue what's inside—that's the fastest way to get us all killed."

The words prickle mildly, and Daryl realizes this isn't the first time Glenn's brought this up. 

Merle doesn't say a word, but Daryl sees, at the corner of his eye, that his brother is watching Glenn again.

"It's done," Daryl says sharply.  Both Merle and Glenn turn to him. "Over with.  We made it out.  Let's all just shut up and get our asses outta here."

Glenn glances at him once and closes his mouth.  Apparently he's decided to listen to Daryl for a change, because he doesn't say a word for the entire ride back.

And all the while, Daryl feels Merle's eyes on him. 

*

A few things have drastically improved since he found Woodbury, Merle tells him.  The most notable and important of all involves a selection of good quality liquor.  It's a wonder exactly how much more enjoyable a bottle of good rye can be without having to double-take with every rustle of dry grass, or to clutch your gun with every small noise. 

"But it all comes at a price," says the Warden, with a drink at his mouth.  "We need to protect this little bit of peace we've carved out for ourselves, with blood and sweat."

Merle nods in agreement with the enthusiasm of a man who's had one too many drinks.  Daryl agrees with a little less enthusiasm, because he's mostly been downing beer for the night.

"Everyone's gotta pull his weight around here, including that Chinese kid of yours," says Merle, words slurring in the way that Daryl hasn't forgotten.  Daryl doesn't correct him, but not because Merle wouldn't remember it next day.

Daryl remembers what comes after such nights, so he isn't surprised when he wakes to the sound of bottles shattering next door.  He stares at the ceiling and counts the cracks in the grey concrete that he can't even see clearly in the dark.  It overlaps with the image of the white plastered ceiling that he had slept under for over twenty years.

_Nothing_ , thinks Daryl.  _Nothing's changed_.  He remembers thinking it, not so long ago. 

It still holds true, even now.

*

Daryl hears it first from Harold, who casually mentions it in passing.

Daryl waits until he can finish his shift, but he walks fast enough that he makes it the medical ward just as Carol and the Doc finish patching up Glenn.  Andrea and T-Dog are already there; so is Merle.  The kid is sitting on the stool sporting a fresh bruise and looking a bit like he's barely avoided getting run over by a small-sized bulldozer on a rampage.

Andrea's lips are pressed into a thin line. "What happened?"

"Just a little rough-housing between the boys," says Merle from behind them. "You've gotta learn to buck up like a man, son."

"Right," Glenn answers, neither agreeing nor denying.

Daryl stands against the wall and watches Merle leave.  Andrea shoots a withering look at Merle's departing form and turns back to Glenn.  "Glenn."

"'s just a scratch." says Glenn.  He feels the cut on his lip with his fingers and winces.  "Seriously, I'm fine.  Sue was arguing with Johnny, and it just got out of hand.  Like I said, nothing."

"Nothing, like 'you accidentally tripped over a fist' nothing?" T-Dog asks, angrily.  "You got the shit kicked out of you, that's what happened."

Daryl watches as the kid continues to feed the others the same bullshit—"Really, it was nothing, honest!"—but the cut on the side of his face is already standing out like black skid marks on pavement, and Daryl doesn't want to stare at it anymore.

"Hey," says Daryl, turning the kid around by his arm.  He knows the others are watching, but he doesn't care.  "Tell me."

Glenn meets his eyes again, but the kid's mouth is tight like it's been sewn shut.

Daryl locks his jaws and pushes away from the wall.  "Fine."

And he would've walked away, too, if Glenn's hand didn't stop him at the last second. 

"I know he's your brother," the kid says quietly. "I know that, and that's—fine, it's all fine, but we're your family, too.  I mean, aren't we?"

And suddenly turning around to face Glenn is a struggle.  The kid is bracing himself visibly, like he's fully expecting Daryl to disagree.  Something is wrong, because Daryl can't even scoff and chide him for being a total girl.

"Of course," Andrea tells Glenn when the silence becomes longer than it should, and her eyes are sharply on Daryl when she continues, "we're a family, Glenn, just not by blood."

Glenn doesn't look at Daryl when he answers Andrea, "Yeah, I know."

This time, Daryl doesn't shrug off Glenn's hand on his arm, because it falls away of its own volition.

And after, the rest of them move further and further away in his periphery.

 

**iv.**

  
Daryl volunteers for a couple of additional shifts at the watchtowers and stays in Merle's room while his brother drinks himself to sleep every night, and all of that keeps his plate full.  It's just as well, because now there's no need to find out whether Glenn is still coming by with his lunch. 

Just as well, because this is just the way it should've always been. 

So when Shane calls for a meeting, Daryl first thinks about dodging it.  But a day in Woodbury blends right into the day after without a whiff of change, and the sameness of it eventually gets to everyone.  It's not hard to see why the men are itching to go out on a hunt whenever there's a chance, so Daryl saunters into Shane's room at the last minute.

Shane is pacing the length of his room like a dog trapped in a kernel.  

Everyone stares at his bed, which has on it a dark olive jacket, one of those army fatigues.  It's filthy, with rips along the collar and mysterious stains all the way down the front.  

"Um, what's that?" asks Glenn, giving voice to everyone's unspoken question.

"Found this at the bottom of the bags they carry with them whenever they go on week-long supply runs."  Shane doesn't stop pacing, and barely-controlled anger seeps through his every word.  "Scouring the areas, they call it."

Daryl fingers the fabric, and looks up at Shane. "What the hell that's got to do with—"

"What do you _think_ it means, Daryl?"  Shane is livid.  "Look, _look_.  It's a military fatigue, what some of them wear when they're out.  Remember where we first met Harold and his gang?  How far were we from the Air Force base?"

Daryl's thoughts abruptly reach a disconcerting conclusion.  He looks around just in time to see everyone else's do.  Dale looks ghastly stricken, and Carol brings her hand to her mouth.  Glenn looks almost comically wide-eyed—Daryl might've laughed if there was an ounce of laughter left inside him.

Rick is silent for a long time.  "Are you sure?" he asks, meeting his once-friend's eyes directly, probably for the first time since finding out that Shane had been sleeping with his wife.

Shane briefly looks startled, like the rest of them, but he nods firmly.  "We need to find out, Rick."

For another long moment, Rick considers his friend and the rest of them.  "All right," Rick decides, picking up the jacket from the bed.  "Let's go talk to Merle, then."

And to think Daryl had once thought Rick Grimes knew how to use his head—  "Wait, just wait a goddamn minute," says Daryl, getting between Rick and the exit.  "What's the plan here?  Just walk in there throwin' accusations every which way?  Just 'cause you all think some woman we met on the road could've been—"

"Her name was Jenny," Andrea snaps at Daryl. "Jenny and Nick Clarkson."

"And Frank and Hazel," adds Lori, quieter but no less angry.

Everyone's remembering how Jenny Clarkson recounted her last few days and then went ahead to kill herself a day after.  So is Daryl.  "You don't—you don't know it was them."

"No," says Rick, impassive. "No, we don't.  So we find out."

There's no stopping them, and they go on to do exactly that in the manner Daryl's foreseen. 

"They've been told to keep their pilferin' to a minimum," is all Merle has to say to that.

Shane places both of his hands on Merle's desk and gets right in Merle's face. "Then obviously you can't control your own men.  Or maybe a cold-blooded murder doesn't count as pilfering, as you put it."

"Harold," says Merle, meeting Shane's glare squarely.

Harold steps up from behind Merle. "No, sir," he says lightly, "what they described hasn't happened."

"You heard the man," says Merle.  He leans against his chair.  "So you got nothin'."

Shane clenches his fists and unfurls them.  And does it all over again.  "We know what we saw."

"Your word against ours.  Like I said—nothin'."

Shane looks like he's a fraction of a second away from putting his fists to good use, but Rick presses a hand against Shane's chest and puts a stop to everything.  "Thank you for your time," he tells Merle, composed and level, in stark contrast to Shane. 

After ushering out the rest of the group, Rick stops at the door and turns around.  "Merle, whenever you go out with your men," he asks, "what do you do when the things you hunt come right back at you?"

Merle's grin only grows.  "Oh, we all do what we've gotta do, don't we?"

"No," says Rick. "No, Merle, we don't."

Daryl doesn't follow after them. 

By the side of one long, seemingly endless highway, they left behind four graves. 

And now, Daryl can't even remember what Jenny's face looked like when her lifeless body was laid out at her husband's side, even though Daryl stared at it for the longest fifteen minutes of his life while he was digging a grave for her.

*

"What does that matter?" is one of the questions that come up when Rick Grimes, in his infinite wisdom, brings the matter to the town hall meeting and appeals to everyone's conscience to try and stop the scouting parties from doing whatever the hell they want whenever they're outside.

It goes as well as one would expect.

Daryl stands at the corner and watches the indifferent and disbelieving faces in the crowd.  The Warden looks almost bored, Harold looks amused, and Merle—Merle is Merle.  Lori and Andrea try to talk to some of the women in the group.  Glenn is talking animatedly with that Sue woman, who shakes her head.

When Daryl staggers back to his room after that unpleasant waste of time, Glenn is waiting for him.  "They killed Jenny's husband," the kid speaks up the moment Daryl steps inside.  "They killed the elderly couple they were traveling with.  They may as well have killed Jenny, too, and no one cares."

"You don't know it was them," says Daryl, automatically.

"You really believe that?" Glenn asks, like he knows what Daryl believes when Daryl doesn't even know himself.  Like he knows what Daryl _should_ believe when Daryl doesn't.

And Daryl has had enough.  "So what if it was, huh?"  He ignores the dismay on Glenn's face. "Were you fuckin' asleep for the last few months?  Out there, right now, it's kill or be killed.  When're you ever gonna get that through that thick head of yours?"

"Daryl, _God_ —" Glenn takes off his baseball cap and rakes a hand through his hair.  "What if it was me in that grave now?  Is it okay because they did this to someone we don't know?  People here all think it's fine, because they never met Jenny.  They don't need to believe it, they don't have to believe it, because that's just _easier_." 

"Don't kid yourself.  You think I'd think twice about slittin' your throat and leavin' you dead if it meant saving my own hide?"

Anyone with half a brain might be hurt by this, but no, Glenn just looks at him.  "You can tell yourself whatever you want if that makes you feel better, but it doesn't make it true."

"Oh, but it does," says Merle, at the doorway. "Like I said to your friend Rick Grimes, we all do what we gotta do for survival.  Ain't no man's principles gonna come between him and that."

Glenn doesn't turn to Merle, and his eyes remain on Daryl, who can't offer a single thing that the kid wants to hear.  Glenn stares at his own chest, then pulls the cap down on his head again.  When he leaves, he still doesn't look at Merle. 

Neither does Daryl.

"Got something to ask, Daryl?" asks Merle.

"No," says Daryl, because he doesn't.  Merle will offer no other explanations, because he hasn't got any and Daryl doesn't have any need for one. 

His brother watches him for another moment and then places his good hand on Daryl's shoulder.  "Good."

It's familiar as always, looking the other way.

*

It takes a couple of weeks before everything's truly shot to hell.

Frankly, Daryl is surprised it lasted this long.

*

When the meeting is called in Shane's room for the second time, Daryl shows up mostly because he's surprised that they even asked him to join them.  But he has to pause at the doorway, because something about what he's seeing isn't quite right. 

"Where's Shane?" asks Daryl, finally.

No one answers.  At the corner of his eye, Daryl notices, almost absently, that Carol is crying.  The others' faces are no better.

"He didn't come back from the last run," T-Dog eventually answers.  His eyes are hard.

For a second, Daryl isn't sure what he's just heard. "The hell does that mean?"

"C'mon, man, what do you _think_ happened?"  T-Dog spreads his arms wide. "You actually need me to draw you a diagram?  Wake the fuck up, man.  Wake _up_.  Don't you see what's goin' on?  Or will you get it only after he kills every one of us?"

Daryl watches their faces.  Glenn is avoiding his eyes.  And then Daryl sees it.  "No," he says, without thinking, "Merle wouldn't—"

"You tell me," says Rick, who's been silently staring at the empty bed that belongs—belonged—to Shane.  "He's your brother.  You know him.  You know what he's capable of.  So, tell me—wouldn't he?"

Daryl's mouth is dry, and he can't get a single word out.

"Right," Rick says, voice low. "That's it.  We're leaving."

"Like hell you are," Daryl snaps.  Except when he looks around, everyone is equally somber, and Glenn is still avoiding his eyes.  "So what, you're just gonna up and leave?  Go _outside_?  Y'all are out of your fuckin' minds."

"Yes, we clearly are," says Andrea, "but what's more crazy would be _staying."_

Daryl turns to Rick, suddenly desperate. "You _really_ gonna risk your family out there again?  With those things still outside?"

"I _asked_ Shane," says Rick.  "I asked him to go with them, in case something happened again, and I didn't think—"  Rick's face shuts down, just like that, and he turns to Daryl so fast that Daryl takes an unintended step back. "Tell me you think every one of us would be safe here, and not just from the things outside.  Tell me that, Daryl, and we're all stayin', no more no more buckin' authority, no more questions."

Rick holds his gaze for another moment. 

Daryl still doesn't have any response for him.

"We're leaving," Rick tells everyone, his eyes still on Daryl.  "Start packing everything we brought in, but do it slowly, and quietly."

Daryl has to dig his fingernails into his palms to fend off the urge to hit something, preferably someone's face.  "Fuck this," he says, taking a couple of steps backward. "Fuck all of this.  I'm out."

"Daryl, look," Glenn says, pleadingly, when Daryl walks past him, "Daryl, Rick got us this far."

Daryl whirls around.  "No, _we_ got us here.  _We_.  We, all of us."

"No, yeah, you're right."  Glenn backs off immediately.  "We did.  We did, and now, Shane isn't here anymore."

And just as soon as that's said, Daryl's anger is leeched away, deflated.  "Shit," he murmurs, running a hand through his hair.

Daryl should've known better, because this only makes Glenn come at him with renewed determination.  "Daryl, just—there's something wrong here, don't you see it?  And something's really off with Merle.  I mean, even more than before.  He's not—he's not _sane_.  Can't you see that?"

" _Don't_."  And there's a flash of rage again, welling up to choke him.  "I don't got no reason to listen to this."

"Daryl," Glenn persists, even knowing all too well what happened the last time, because that's what he always does. "You have to come with us.  You can't stay here, not when all of them are, not when Merle is—"

Daryl feels cornered, ambushed by emotions he refuses to name, so he reacts in the only way he knows how.  Daryl closes the space between them until his index finger is digging in Glenn's chest.  "If you talk shit about my brother again, I _will_ beat the shit out of you."

It would've been easier if Glenn got angry, or turned away in disappointment, or even punched him in the face.  As it is, all he does is quietly flinch. 

After a frozen moment, it's actually Andrea who slaps Daryl's hand away. "Come on, Glenn, save your breath."  She puts an arm around Glenn's shoulders and steers him away from Daryl. "It's falling on deaf ears."

"Once a man decides not to hear anything, there's nothing you can say to change his mind," Dale says, and now the resignation in his voice seems strangely more fitting than his ever-present hope. "Is there?"

The last part is aimed at Daryl, but he's not listening, because he's already exiting Shane's room and walking down yet another endless grey hallway.

_Shane_ , thinks Daryl. 

Shane asked them once: _How long, until they get to one of us for good?_

And now, the rest of them are leaving.  And Glenn—

It's easy, too easy, then, to pick up the bottle of whiskey from Merle's room and swallow a mouthful.  And then another.

And another.

*

They try to leave.  The Warden doesn't take it kindly.

"You're here because we invited you in, graciously and magnanimously," says the Warden, from behind his desk.

T-Dog is immediately riled up, but Rick is, at least on the surface, all politeness.  "We mean no offence, and we certainly don't want to be a bother to you and your people," he says. "We just want our vehicles back, and we'll be on our way."

The Warden looks like he might give in to consider the possibility, looking indeed magnanimous.  "Well, can't spare you any gasoline, of course—"

"Hey, we brought in half of the—"

"That's understandable," says Rick, cutting off T-Dog with a quick, sharp shake of his head.

The Warden continues on smoothly, like he was never interrupted, "But then, how are we to know you won't give out the location of Woodbury to people and make things difficult for us?"

"Our say-so," says T-Dog.

"Our word," says Dale. "You have our word, Warden."

The Warden is shaking his head dramatically.  "I'm not sure whether that would be ever good enough."

"But," says Harold, "'suppose you can always try asking nicely."  He's wearing one of those smiles that make Daryl want to bash his head against any wall that's within reach.  "See if that gets you anywhere."

Rick remains quiet for a long moment before he speaks up again: "What happened to the prisoners of Woodbury Penitentiary, Warden?"

There is a sudden silence descending in the room.  Daryl, standing at the back of the office, doesn't fail to notice how how Harold shifts uncomfortably behind Merle, and, because Daryl knows what every little movement of Merle's means, how Merle's shoulders stiffen ever so slightly.

"Some of them must've made it," Rick continues mildly.  "So, did you know what you were doing, lettin' them loose like this?  Or do you actually condone what they're doing?"

"I do no such thing—"

Rick ignores the Warden and turns to Merle at the Warden's side.  "Tell me then, Merle," his voice trembles, just a little, but his eyes are still hard, "how did Shane die?"

"Accidents happen," says Merle, with one careless, and yet precise shrug.  "So do mistakes.  Say," he snaps his fingers, and his smile comes alive, "just like losing a key for some handcuffs."

The next second, a punch lands Merle on the floor.  Harold and two others pry Rick away from Merle and hold him down.  T-Dog and Dale are restrained even before they can cross the room to reach Rick.

Merle pushes away from Daryl's hands, trying to help him up, and wipes the blood on his mouth with the back of his hand.  "When those things took a bite out of him, Grimes, he pissed on himself.  Like a worthless, gutless pig."  Merle's smile, streaked in red, looks ghoulish.  "He _squealed_."

Once before, just once, Daryl's seen Rick Grimes lose his temper.  And even then, his anger had been held in tight, cold and sharply burning.  This time, he lets it loose completely.  If any of them were allowed to carry a gun outside the armory, there wouldn't have been anyone left standing.

As it is, even Rick Grimes in a rage can't fight off a large number of men by himself with only his fists, and he goes down in a heap of tangled limbs.

"Escort him to solitary and the other two to the holding cell," the Warden orders dismissively.  "Let them cool off for a few days.  I'm sure that will change their minds."

Daryl's still crouching on the floor when his brother gets up and walks over to stand behind the Warden, and when they take Rick, T-Dog and Dale away.  

And suddenly, Daryl remembers Rick's words, just as they took their first step toward Woodbury. 

_A prison's designed to keep people from going in and out._

*

"Where are they?" asks Lori. 

Neither Merle nor Harold deigns to answer the question, so it's Johnny who does, smiling his weasily smile: "The penalty box, on the account of 'em gettin' all violent and all.  Hey, why don't ya use your feminine wiles to convince your husband to change his mind about this whole crazy leavin' thing he's set his mind on?"

Lori puts her arms around her son and Sophia—tightly, like that would help keep them safe.  "Thanks for the suggestion," Lori says, carefully choosing her words, "but I have no intention of trying to change his mind.  We're all on the same page about leaving."

Carol and Andrea move closer to stand behind Lori.  It's a feeble, futile gesture.

Daryl is standing in the middle of the large, white hallway of the medical ward, just outside Carol's room.  His legs feel like they've been bolted on the spot.  He can't enter and stand behind Merle and his men, nor can he take a few steps farther and stand between them.

"Well, you're gonna hafta wait a while for your men, then, 'cause the Warden, well, he says they ain't gettin' out until they calm the fuck down."  Johnny walks around to poke at the half-packed bags laid out on Carol's bed, randomly picking up items.  "And hey, you wouldn't be tryin' to steal these pills for your kid, would you?"

"Those are what Dr. Stevens prescribed," Lori answers, her face tight. 

"What, didn't Doc tell you?" asks Johnny, looking scandalized.  He shakes the bottle of pills in his hand.  "There's this rationin' over pills now.  The Warden says everyone's gotta respect the line-up, but he might make it go quicker, just for you, if you ask real nicely."

"Good looking boy, ain't he?" says Merle, hovering close to Carl. "You wouldn't want to get him coughin' again, now, would you?"

Lori leaps in front of her son, pushing him behind her.  "You stay _away_ from him," she practically snarls, like she could and would smother Merle with her bare hands if he came any closer.  She could sometimes look like any passing breeze would knock her over, but ten men _might_ be able to stop her from fighting for her son—and even then only if she's six feet under.

Daryl doesn't move.  He can't.

"Hey, Merle," says Andrea, stepping between Lori and Merle, all smooth-like.  She has a bright and terrible, maybe even flirtatious, smile on her face. "You really think a mom worried sick over her kid can make this any fun for you?"

That gets Merle's full attention.  Daryl knows she's got balls, but he's got to hand it to her this time, because she continues it with, "Why don't you ever pick on someone your own size?"  Andrea's smile is still so terribly, mockingly bright.  "That is, if you're ever up for it."

There's that glint in Merle's eyes, one that Daryl recognizes from some of the more unforgettable hunts they've been on together.  Merle's hand grabs her arm and Daryl takes a half step forward, but then there's a sound behind him, and he turns around to see Glenn drop his bag onto the floor.

"No," says Glenn, pushing Daryl away and walking into the room.  "No, you can't do this.  Get your hand off of her."

Harold easily backhands Glenn before the kid even gets anywhere close to Merle, sending him sprawling across the floor.

"You little shit," says Merle, releasing his grip on Andrea and turning to Glenn.  "You speak only when you're spoken to."

Carol reaches Glenn's side first. "You're worse monsters than the things out there," Carol says, pushing Glenn behind her and turning to Merle.  She's standing taller than Daryl's ever seen her. "You should be ashamed of yourselves."

"Oh, you just wait your turn, woman," says Johnny.

Daryl's halfway across the hallway when they're interrupted by the footsteps of the Doc coming down the corridor in a hurry.  He doesn't stop to give Daryl a second look and rushes into the room. "Carol, what in the world is—"  He stops at the scene unfolding in front of him and does a slow double-take.

After a moment of awkward silence, Harold explains, "Just resolving some misunderstandings, Doc.  Never you mind."

The Doc pushes his glasses up his nose and takes another look at Carol, and Andrea, and the children. "I think all of you men should leave.  Now."

"Now, Doc," says Johnny, who has the audacity to look wounded, "that ain't too kind of you, is it now."

"I think this has gone on long enough," the Doc counters.  "Don't you think so, Mr. Dixon?"

Merle stares at the Doc, who stares back with the blandest expression on his face.  But not even Johnny is dumb enough to piss off the doctor who might have to fix him up some time in the future, so Merle, after a moment, takes a step back with both arms raised, and turns around.  His men follow behind him.

Daryl doesn't, and Merle doesn't wait for him.  Andrea turns to Lori and the children, and Carol and the Doc are at Glenn's side right away.  Glenn waves their help away and staggers backward until he finds a wall and slides down against it. 

" _Fuck_."  The kid's arms come up to wrap around his head, like he wants to be buried under them.  " _God_."

For a long moment, the kid doesn't move.

"Glenn—"

Daryl only realizes he's stepped through the doorway and made it across the room when Glenn shakes away the hand that Daryl, unthinkingly and reflexively, offers.  Glenn staggers up by himself and looks Daryl in the eye.

"You were right."  The kid speaks clearly, even though his voice seems shriveled up and dead.  "You were right, before.  I don't know you.  I never did."

Glenn's eyes are red but dry.  He walks over to his friends without one backward glance.

_No tears_ , thinks Daryl.  _Not this time._

So, at least in that, something has changed.

Daryl feels laughter at his throat, the kind that claws and rips and leaves cracks behind, as he turns away.

*

_There is a crow, flying by low and cawing._

_A prone body is on one side of the road, a ghastly outline covered in chalk-white dust.  Shane's body is right next to it, bleeding red._

_A familiar voice whispers at his ear, "What're you ever good for, anyway?"_

_"A turkey shoot," the answer echoes._

Daryl wakes up in cold sweat and finds himself in an empty cell that is supposed to be his home, and tries to remember how he's got there. 

*

Things have changed again when Daryl wakes up from another liquor-induced stupor.

It's Carol who frantically wakes him up.  "Daryl, you seen Glenn?  No one's seen him since yesterday, and his room—"  She struggles to compose herself, looking thin and frail.  "Daryl, there's blood."

Daryl tumbles out of his bed.  His mind is a whirlwind and his leaden legs wouldn't work on his command, but his feet know where to go, so they propel him forward.  His first stop isn't Glenn's room, and he doesn't have to go far to reach it.

"What did you do?" Daryl asks, pressing a palm against the steel doorframe to hold himself upright—and to keep his hand occupied.

"Sometimes people don't listen," says Merle, lying on his bed with a drink at his mouth.  "They've _got to be_ kept in line."

Daryl's feet feel unsteady under him again.  He kneels at his brother's bedside.  "Merle, what did you do?"

Suddenly, Merle's hand shoots out and grasps at Daryl's shoulder, tightening painfully around it.  "Hey, hey, hey, that kid's been fillin' your head with filthy lies, pittin' you against me.  But, see, all that kid needed was just a lesson, a _rough hand_."

Daryl closes his eyes.  "Merle."

"Needs a hand."  Merle laughs at that, at himself.   It's a bleak and bitter sound.  "A hand." 

_You're exactly like him_ , said Glenn, all without words.

_You're right_ , thinks Daryl.

*

A well-worn red baseball cap sits crumpled on the cement floor. 

Daryl stares at it until his eyes burn.

He's more than familiar with its shape and its shade, though it's now streaked with dirt, and dark stains run along its rim.  

Daryl slides down along the wall until he meets the ground.

There are bloodstains on the floor, and on Glenn's bed.  At the far corner, water is steadily leaking from the small faucet into the white clay sink.

The sound of its every drop tears into his chest.

The decision comes easily, after.

*

He's never been one for grand plans—that's always been Rick or Glenn.  But Daryl's got one thing on his side: he knows his brother.

He corners Andrea in the hallway to the cafeteria and boxes her in with his body when she tries to twist out of his grip.

"I've got trouble," he says quietly, one hand still pressed just above her shoulder, "with sleepin'."

Andrea's smile is hard and brittle.  "And what would you like me to do about it?  Sing you a lullaby?  Hold your hand until you fall asleep?" 

Her words and tone dance just on the right side of mocking, but her eyes are set sharp, and Daryl lets himself feel the cuts.  "Mind if I borrow 'em pills of yours?"

The look in Andrea's eyes changes into something less cutting and more curious, if still guarded.  "I might have some left," she treads carefully. "What do you need them for?"

"Tomorrow, it's Annie's—his wife's—" he stops, because that doesn't matter.  "My brother could use some.  You might wanna use them, too.  For dinner."

It takes a couple of seconds, but she figures it out, because she's never been dumb. 

He doesn't need to search for words, not this time, because he's thought this through.  "Then maybe you'll want to look in on Lori and Carol and the kids," he suggests quietly.  "Around midnight.  Might be a good time."  

After a moment, she nods once.  "Okay, I just might."  

And then she slaps his face, hard enough to sting.

"You keep your filthy hands to yourself," she snaps, before whipping around and walking away to the opposite direction.

Just as Daryl tries to get his head back on straight, he catches a couple of men from security walking closer.  "Shit," says Johnny, laughing at him.  "Frigid bitch, ain't she?"

"She's that," answers Daryl, feeling his jaw.  It's the same spot where Glenn socked him once. 

It doesn't hurt.

*

It's not difficult to figure out where the men are being kept, and it's even easier to look up the shift schedule.  No one gives him a second look, because he's Daryl Dixon.  A few hours before the time he's set to move, something occurs to him, so he takes an unplanned detour and sneaks into the medical ward.

It soon proves to be a mistake, because each bottle looks exactly the same as the next one, and while he fumbles around looking for any kind of medical records with his clumsy hands, the door opens, and the Doc enters and turns on the light.

And then freezes at the sight of Daryl.

The Doc looks at Daryl, and at Daryl's gun, and then slowly shuts the door behind him.  In Daryl's one moment of indecision, the Doc leans over and takes out a bottle of pills from a glass cabinet.  After some consideration, he takes another bottle from the cabinet and hands both over to Daryl.

"They will need this," the Doc says, and then pats himself down and fishes out a key holder from one pocket of his lab coat. "And use my key. It will get you to the north wing.  That's where the solitary cells are."

Daryl's been planning to use a bolt cutter, so this is a welcome aid.  Still, Daryl looks up from the key he's holding.  "Why?"

Daryl hasn't looked carefully before, but now he notices the Doc's disheveled grey hair and bloodshot eyes.  The Doc takes a breath and says, "Just because everyone's looking the other way, it doesn't mean they want to."  And then he smiles, a painful kind that seems to swallow emotions more than letting them out.  "And because I wish I wasn't so afraid."

With that said, the Doc sits back on his chair and pulls out a chart.  "Tell them I wish them luck, if you can."

And the man begins to flip through his charts, scribbling stuff and adding notes as he goes along. 

Daryl can't think of anything to say, not even a mere thanks that's always worth so little, so he leaves and closes the door behind him.

*

Andrea is, as expected, right on schedule.  Most of the men not assigned to sentry duty are solidly drunk after Merle's freed up the last box of loot from a liquor store.  Anyone who isn't drunk has fallen asleep after having a bowl of soup from the cafeteria. 

Just after a shift change, Daryl breaks out Dale and T-Dog from the holding cells and sends them to round up the women and the kids.  
   
He's got no particular plan on how he's going to find the cell they got Rick locked in, but it becomes easy when he sees a man on watch in one dark corridor.  It's even easier to make the man go to sleep with one well-aimed blow to the back of his head, and then to steal his keys.

It turns out he doesn't have to use them, because the door's left unlocked.  Daryl finds out why when he enters the cell and sees Rick Grimes on the cot.

He's been handcuffed to the bolted steel frame of the bed. 

There's a hacksaw lying within his reach, its sharp edges splattered with blood. 

_Merle_ , thinks Daryl, and for a long moment cannot breathe.  _God, Merle._

"Daryl?" Rick asks, visibly suppressing flashes of pain.

Daryl grits his teeth and walks over to Rick's side.  "Can you walk?"

Rick manages a nod with some effort.  "Yes."

Daryl uses one of the guard's keys to free Rick from the handcuffs.  Daryl doesn't shudder at the look of Rick's left hand, raw and bloody around the wrist, and loops his arm around Rick's waist to pull him to his feet.

"You're all leavin' tonight.  T-Dog knows where I left the trucks, three miles north, so he can lead the way once you're all outside.  Most of your stuff's there."  Daryl puts two bottles of pills in Rick's jacket pocket.  "Painkillers, courtesy of the Doc.  The other one's for your kid, in case that cough he's got comes back again."

Rick watches him for a long second that they don't have.

"Why?" Rick asks, stopping them in their tracks just as they're about to slip out of the cell.  "Tell me why you're doing this."

It's an echo of the question that he's asked the Doc, and he doesn't have a half decent answer.  _You don't get to choose your family_ , Daryl doesn't say.  He doesn't say, _He's my brother_.  He doesn't say, _He wasn't always like this_.  None of that matters, so he says, "Glenn's still here somewhere.  You up for this?"

Rick stares at him for another moment before nodding.  "Let's go."

*

The kid is crumpled at one corner of a tiny solitary room, a few cells down from Rick's.  

His face is a clotted mess, mottled in red.  His left eye is almost swollen shut.

Daryl slides down next to him and listens to the thready, brittle rasp coming from the kid's cracked lips.  

With every difficult breath Glenn takes, Daryl feels a dent at his lasting image of Merle, his brother's strong, callused hands that had always seemed larger than life.

"Daryl," says Rick, quiet and worried.

"C'mon, kid."  Daryl places a hand around Glenn's neck, as gently as possible.  "Easy.  Easy, it's alright.  You're gettin' out of here."

The kid stifles a pained groan, flinching away from Daryl's touch.

Daryl reaches out with his other hand and carefully turns the kid's face so that the kid can't look away from him.  "Glenn, hey, listen.  The tunnel from the 60s, from that evacuation plan of yours—remember where that is?"

Slowly, Glenn's eyes slide over to Daryl's. 

"Think you can find the way out?" Daryl asks, though it's one of the few questions that he knows the answer to.

Finally, there's recognition in those eyes. 

Glenn's nod is slow, but firm.  And he lets Daryl pull him onto his feet, to carry him forward.

Rick, watching from the doorway, holds the door open for them.

*

The underground tunnel curves and twists and unwinds to form a veritable maze, and their flashlights draw zigzag patterns of light on the ground they tread.  Daryl thinks he might've seen the same passages in nightmares that he can't recall.

Glenn leads the way.  When his steps falter, Daryl holds him up again and they push forward. 

In the near darkness, their progress is slow and careful and quiet, but that's also why they're able to hear the footsteps coming from the other end.  Daryl signals the rest of the group to halt, and creeps forward by himself.  Ahead, the main tunnel branches out into several different paths, and Daryl waits by one corner. 

A spot of light grows larger, and then it reveals a moving shape, which gradually turns out to be Harold, his rifle digging into the back of a man wearing white—the Doc, Daryl realizes, as he watches the man walk slowly, hesitantly, in front of Harold.

Just as they're turning the corner, Daryl yanks the Doc toward him by the arm and swings his rifle to deliver a satisfying, vicious blow to Harold's head.

"I'm—I'm so sorry," stutters the Doc, looking up at Daryl, and then at Harold, who's out cold on the ground. "They found out I gave you the key—"

"They?" asks Daryl, and whirls around.

And Merle's there in front of him.

"What're you doin', Daryl?" asks Merle, unhurried and pleasant.

Almost involuntarily, Daryl lowers his gun.  He can't point his gun at his brother, not even without any intention to shoot.  It occurs to him, somewhat belatedly, that he should've stirred another sleeping pill into Merle's whiskey.

"I'm lettin' them go, Merle," Daryl says, and his voice, by some miracle, does not shake. "They don't belong here."

"That so, huh?"

Merle takes a step toward him.  The grip on his gun is wavering, but it points directly at Rick, who has come up behind Daryl.  And it's not just Rick.  Everyone is now standing behind Daryl.

"What's waitin' for them out there, then?  Other than certain, horrible deaths?"

"We're willing to take our chances," says Rick.  His face is pale but calm, with his good hand tight around his boy.

Merle's face crumbles into something ugly.  Daryl remembers a night not so different from this one, the night after the cancer finally took Annie away, after it had eaten at her little by little until nothing was left of her on her deathbed.  Merle had cursed at the world, then. 

And tonight, Merle cocks the rifle, sluggish but unerring in every movement.  "You'll never make it out alive, Grimes, I assure you." 

"And neither will you," says Lori, before she fires a shot into Merle's chest.

Everything stops.

Rick stares at his wife.  Everyone stares at his wife.  Lori, however, doesn't spare a glance at Merle, who's fallen to the ground, or at her husband, or even at her son.  With her gun lowered, she's looking at Daryl. 

She's waiting for his judgment, Daryl realizes numbly.

Merle tried to kill her husband and threatened her son.  She has every reason to shoot him.  And by that same token, Daryl has every reason to do the same.  Family is family, she seems to be saying, all without a single word.

Daryl watches Carl Grimes, both of his small arms tightly wrapped around his father's waist.  He watches Rick.  And Lori, looking at Daryl, her thin frame unwavering.

He can't look at Glenn, not his open and hurting face, so he watches his brother.  Merle's still alive.  There's a telltale sign of his chest rising up and down.  Up and down.  And again.  Slow, but it's there. 

Daryl lifts his trembling finger from the trigger. 

For quite some time, no one says another word.

The Doc, breaking the tableau, pads over to Merle, adjusts his skewed glasses and feels for Merle's injuries.  "I don't think it hit anything vital," the Doc concludes, with something strangely like relief.

Daryl doesn't realize when he's dropped the gun and crashed at Merle's side, but he has.  And he doesn't even feel Glenn crouching beside him, until the kid's hand is on Daryl's shoulder.  It's surprisingly steady, the feel of it.  Daryl can't bring himself to shake his hand away again, so he doesn't.

"We need to go," Andrea speaks up first.  "We don't have long 'til they wise up and figure out what's happened."

She quickly rounds up the rest of them and hurries them toward the opening of the tunnel.  Carol turns to the Doc and extends a hand.  "Come with us."

The Doc shakes his head.  "Go, all of you.  They won't do anything to me.  They can't." 

"Let's go," Andrea repeats, this time standing at Daryl's side, and only then Daryl realizes that she's speaking to him.  That wasn't the plan.  That's never been the plan.

"I will see to your brother," the Doc says, looking at Daryl.  "I promise."

"I—" Daryl stops, and stares at his bloodied hands and at his brother. "Merle—"

"We need you," Andrea says, even though it's always been the other way around.  But she says it simply, like that's all there is to it, like she isn't telling him to leave Merle, his flesh and blood, behind.  

"It's the end of the world."  Dale places a gentle hand over Daryl's other shoulder.  "You said so yourself.  Remember that?  You can be anyone you choose to be."

"Daryl," says Rick, and nothing else.

Glenn doesn't say a word.  He doesn't have to.  His head is almost resting on Daryl's shoulder, and Daryl can feel him breathe.

_Merle,_ he thinks _.  God, Merle._

Daryl runs a hand down his face, and breathes in. 

"Let's get the fuck out of this hellhole," he says.

They do.  
 

  
**END**


End file.
